[yocto-ab] YP Advisory Board: April meeting minutes & new member info

Tue Apr 19 07:42:08 PDT 2016

I have no issue giving small companies a price break in some way (Bronze
or sliding silver).
However, expecting Gold members to take up all the slack and larger
SIlver members pay nothing extra is not acceptable to TI.

On 04/18/2016 01:39 PM, Jeff Osier-Mixon wrote:
> It is worth mentioning that there are other possibilities as well.
> Here are some ideas:
>
> - Bronze level at a lower price point
> - Sliding scale for Silver based on company size, say 5k - 20k
> - Dues increase only for Gold, not for Silver
> - Dues increase to 60k for Gold, 0 for Silver
>
> There are pros and cons for each of these. We need to keep in mind
> that the goal is to keep the project fully funded, to keep the
> documentation production at its normal rate, and to keep member value
> high.
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 10:11 AM, Erway, Tracey M
> <tracey.m.erway at intel.com> wrote:
>> Jefro corrected me:  "Dues are billed annually in January, so we can't raise them in 2016. We asked people to donate spare cash, as Renesas did."
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: yocto-ab-bounces at yoctoproject.org [mailto:yocto-ab-bounces at yoctoproject.org] On Behalf Of Erway, Tracey M
>> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 9:55 AM
>> To: Jeff Osier-Mixon; yocto-ab at yoctoproject.org
>> Subject: Re: [yocto-ab] YP Advisory Board: April meeting minutes & new member info
>>
>> The purpose of upping the dues was to cover this year's shortfall.  We need a solution that raises funds in the immediate timeframe, so future guidelines will not address the issue.
>> /t
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: yocto-ab-bounces at yoctoproject.org [mailto:yocto-ab-bounces at yoctoproject.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Osier-Mixon
>> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 9:50 AM
>> To: yocto-ab at yoctoproject.org
>> Subject: Re: [yocto-ab] YP Advisory Board: April meeting minutes & new member info
>>
>> Hi again - I'm following up on the potential dues increase in 2017. I had a conversation with Otavio this morning, and he suggested that some of the Silver members might have a great deal of difficulty with a 50% increase in dues, especially as they are all currently paying for LF corporate membership as well.
>>
>> I propose that we consider keeping Silver at 10k annually, but placing stronger guidelines on which organizations can join as Silver.
>> Alternatively, we could reopen the discussion about Bronze level. I think it is paramount to the community to have an affordable participation level that still has access to YP Compatible status.
>>
>> Thoughts welcome
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 6:38 PM, Jeff Osier-Mixon <jefro at jefro.net> wrote:
>>> Note to new members - I have tried to add information in these minutes
>>> to help explain the roles of each of the groups within the project, so
>>> these minutes are quite long but hopefully informative.
>>>
>>> Yocto Project Advisory Board
>>> Wed April 6, 2016
>>>
>>> Attendees:
>>>
>>> Tracey Erway, Intel
>>> Cyril Chemparathy, Xilinx
>>> Justin Waters, Timesys
>>> Bill Mills, TI
>>> Chris Hallinan, Mentor Graphics
>>> Armin Kuster, MontaVista
>>> Munakata-san, Renesas
>>> Stu Grossman. Juniper
>>> Tyler Baker, Linaro
>>> Philip Balister, OpenEmbedded
>>> Jeff Osier-Mixon, YP/Intel
>>> Lieu Ta, Wind River
>>> Richard Purdie, YP
>>>
>>> If I missed your name on the attendee list, please let me know. We did
>>> have a quorum and were able to vote in the meeting.
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________
>>> New Members & Special Thanks
>>>
>>> The project welcomed new members Linaro and Xilinx, as well as
>>> returning member Timesys. Thanks for being part of the Yocto Project!
>>>
>>> Special thanks to Renesas, who donated cash in Q1 to help pay for
>>> documentation and Developer Day, and to Intel, who also donated cash
>>> in Q1 to help pay for documentation.
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________
>>> Budget
>>>
>>> Lieu Ta from Wind River is responsible for Finance within the project.
>>>
>>> The project has an annual budget of approximately US$400k. With this
>>> budget, we pay for the following categories of expenses, with 2015
>>> percentages shown:
>>>
>>> - Infrastructure (66%): physical and network infrastructure, including
>>> build systems and servers, and systems administrator.
>>>
>>> - Operations (15%): basic project operations, including legal as well
>>> as 15% overhead to LF
>>>
>>> - Advocacy (13%): activities often provided by marketing
>>> organizations, including collateral, public relations, outbound
>>> communications, and event coverage.
>>>
>>> - Documentation (5%): we pay a contract technical writer to create
>>> documentation for the project. (This expense is expected to grow
>>> significantly in 2016)
>>>
>>> - Community (1%): this budget covers gaps, including meeting expenses,
>>> donations to related organizations like OpenEmbedded, paid internships
>>> such as Outreachy, and occasionally travel for specific vital
>>> personnel to important gatherings.
>>>
>>> Lieu presented the results of the 2015 budget. Income and expenses
>>> were very nearly on par, with a small shortfall due to documentation
>>> expenses. The 2015 figures are currently posted on the wiki at:
>>>
>>> https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Yocto_Project_Finances
>>>
>>> We discussed the ongoing 2016 budget, which is expecting some notable
>>> shortfalls primarily due to the project taking on the cost of
>>> documentation, expected to cost $120k-150k/year. We also discussed the
>>> 2017 budget. This discussion is presented later in these minutes as
>>> part of the discussion about membership and business development.
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________
>>> Advocacy & Events
>>>
>>> Tracey Erway from Intel leads the Advocacy effort for YP, with help
>>> from the Advocacy team.
>>>
>>> Tracey presented a summary of advocacy activities, including events,
>>> giveaways, Developer Day training sessions, and the backgrounder that
>>> was finished last year. She also mentioned that YP currently has 80%
>>> of the commercial embedded linux OS market share, which is great news
>>> indeed.
>>>
>>> In 2015 we attended and sponsored ELC and ELCE, and also added SCaLE
>>> in early 2016 along with a free-to-attend introductory training
>>> session, or "mini-DevDay" event, with training provided by LF
>>> Training.
>>>
>>> Developer Day US 2015 in San Jose was actually profitable due to the
>>> efforts of Mentor Graphics and the donation of their facility. Both
>>> DevDays were greatly enhanced by the donation and subsequent giveaway
>>> of a great deal of hardware from Intel, TI, and TechNexion, as well as
>>> SanDisk. DevDay US 2016 was made possible by a large cash donation
>>> from Renesas as well as hardware donations from Linaro, TI, and Intel.
>>> All DevDay sessions are driven by the tireless effort of many
>>> volunteer speakers, classroom helpers, and organizers to reach 150-200
>>> students directly each year, who then take that knowledge back to
>>> their companies.
>>>
>>> Andreea completed work on the YP backgrounder, a brochure with two
>>> versions that is available in the YP booth at all events. PDF versions
>>> have been sent to all member organizations so they can print it and
>>> bring it to events that YP does not sponsor. The longer of the two,
>>> which contains profiles of each organization that contributed now
>>> needs to be updated because of our new members, but the smaller
>>> version still works just fine.
>>>
>>> Tracey identified the website as a primary need. It needs to be
>>> refreshed with an easier to read front page, a regular blog, and
>>> better information flow for new users. Several people have volunteered
>>> ideas - at this point what is needed is funding and resources to make
>>> it happen.
>>>
>>> Bill Mills cautioned the organization to not be too marketing driven,
>>> which we discussed as a group.
>>>
>>> Jefro congratulated the Advocacy team for getting so much done on such
>>> a small budget.
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________
>>> Infrastructure
>>>
>>> Michael Halstead is a systems administrator who started with YP in the
>>> very early days as a contractor. He is now an employee at Linux
>>> Foundation working solely on YP. His salary as well as all the servers
>>> and infrastructure he works on come from this budget.
>>>
>>> Michael gave a rundown on our infrastructure, particularly the build
>>> machines and autobuilders he manages along with the servers,
>>> particularly the git server and all community assets such as the
>>> mailing lists, wiki, and bugzilla.
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________
>>> Documentation
>>>
>>> Scott Rifenbark is the project's technical writer. He sometimes works
>>> in conjunction with other resources donated by member organizations,
>>> particularly Intel. Scott has been with the project since before its
>>> launch in 2010. He previously worked as an Intel employee, but since
>>> fall 2015 he has been contracted to the project through LF.
>>>
>>> Since documentation is one of the primary value adds that the project
>>> provides to its members, this is an important resource to hang onto.
>>> We have paid for Scott's work to date by donations from member
>>> organizations, particularly Intel and Renesas. If documentation is
>>> important to you, please consider donating for this budget
>>> specifically.
>>>
>>> To pay for documentation, the Advisory Board discussed three major
>>> funding ideas, which are covered next.
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________
>>> Business Development and Membership
>>>
>>> The project has had between 17 and 20 members for most of its
>>> existence, and while the budget has always been one of the smallest
>>> among the LF Collaborative Projects, we have provided quite a lot of
>>> value to the members and to the general public with what we had. It is
>>> noteworthy that the project has been self-sustaining for nearly all of
>>> the five years it has existed, and we want to continue that success
>>> going forward.
>>>
>>> Given the expenses and income the project expects for 2016,
>>> particularly the added load of documentation, we discussed at length
>>> ways to increase the available funds through business development and
>>> membership dues.
>>>
>>> We settled on five specific actions:
>>>
>>> - Establish a new membership level: Platinum, with dues of 100k (or
>>> more). Each Platinum member gets two votes on the Advisory Board. This
>>> is effective immediately, and any member organization can switch to
>>> Platinum at any time. Each member org is tasked with the action to
>>> pitch this membership level to their management structure to see if it
>>> is feasible.
>>>
>>> - Propose to raise dues starting in 2017. The current proposal is to
>>> move Gold members to 55k per year, an increase of 10k, and Silver
>>> members to 15k per year, an increase of 5k. Each member org is tasked
>>> with the action to let their organizations know this increase has been
>>> proposed and to report back to the group in May.
>>>
>>> - Become more active and involved as a group in recruiting new member
>>> organizations. To that end, several members are interested in
>>> exploring the new member pipeline and also in looking to their own
>>> network of partners to expand project membership.
>>>
>>> - A potential non-voting Bronze level was also discussed, with
>>> potential dues of 1k to 5k and various member values and potential
>>> restrictions. However, this would provide minimal benefit to the
>>> project, so it was decided instead to establish a YP Supporter level
>>> to recognize anyone who donates any amount to the project lower than a
>>> Silver membership. Jefro will follow up on how this recognition is to
>>> be done, including a provisional YP Supporter badge similar to YP
>>> Participant.
>>>
>>> - We also discussed establishing clearer guidelines on member value,
>>> especially in terms of access to the primary YP git server at
>>> git.yoctoproject.org. The team has an action to review the current
>>> tree of layers available on the git server so that more valuable
>>> layers will be more prominent. It was noted that some hosted hardware
>>> layers are not represented by the companies who produce the hardware,
>>> so the team agreed to approach those companies for silver membership,
>>> and potentially to formalize autobuilder access and QA support as
>>> member benefits. RP has the lead responsibility for these things, with
>>> Jefro planning to help.
>>>
>>> Along those same lines, the BSP layer definition was planned to be
>>> discussed at the OpenEmbedded meeting later in the week. RP agreed to
>>> discuss BSPs in more detail at th enext Advisory Board meeting in May.
>>>
>>> Tracey offered to write up some of the data she has access to in terms
>>> of market share so that members can use it to promote YP inside their
>>> own organizations.
>>>
>>> Members can always donate funds, as Renesas and Intel have recently,
>>> and it is good to remember that each organization has a responsibility
>>> to donate human resources to the project, as mentioned in the
>>> membership agreement. Most member organizations have at least one
>>> person working full-time on YP issues.
>>>
>>> One more note about membership. Please be aware that while the project
>>> currently places no concrete restrictions on membership level, there
>>> is an expectation that a member org's chosen level will correspond to
>>> some degree with organization size, but mostly with the real value it
>>> gets from the project. Members rely on YP as an upstream for their own
>>> software products, as an enabling tool for their hardware BSPs, or as
>>> a primary tool for creating operating systems for commercial embedded
>>> products. Given the extremely high market penetration the project has
>>> established in only five years, project dues are very inexpensive
>>> compared to the value received. These are vital business functions, so
>>> it makes sense to support the project as fully as your organization
>>> can.
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________
>>> Community
>>>
>>> Community management is a gap-filling role within the organization,
>>> with a charter to listen to each of the communities within the project
>>> - users, maintainers, technical leaders, maintainers - and to monitor
>>> and enable their efforts. Jeff "Jefro" Osier-Mixon is the community
>>> manager, and he also serves as business liaison to the technical
>>> writer, project liaison to Michael Halstead, and contributor to
>>> Advocacy and other efforts within the organization.
>>>
>>> As we were short on time, Jefro briefly discussed the vibrant and very
>>> active YP community, which has experienced a rock-steady growth since
>>> the project's inception, having grown out of the already active
>>> OpenEmbedded community. The project has 35-50 distinct committers each
>>> month, and a very active codebase. (More technical stats at
>>> https://www.openhub.net/p/YoctoProject) The website experiences on the
>>> order of 2.8M pageviews annually. The mailing lists are home to about
>>> 2500 very active developers, and we have active presence on several
>>> social media sites.
>>>
>>> Some statistics are available, and more metrics are being developed
>>> this year, but we discussed briefly that they are not entirely
>>> meaningful other than to establish and track trends. As project
>>> godfather Dave Stewart said once, it isn't the raw number of
>>> participants that matters, it's that we reach the right participants,
>>> those who benefit from the project and those who can do good for the
>>> project in return. With 80% market share and many thousands of
>>> individual users worldwide, I think we are currently successful with
>>> that, and it will continue to be our core value.
>>>
>>> Please feel free to contact me directly or comment on this thread to
>>> the Advisory Board, and don't hesitate to reach out to me personally
>>> if anything is unclear or if you have any questions.
>>>
>>> Thanks for participating!
>>> --
>>> Jeff Osier-Mixon
>>> Open Source Community Architect, Intel Corporation
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jeff Osier-Mixon
>> Open Source Community Architect, Intel Corporation
>> --
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>
>