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

Tue Apr 19 10:39:55 PDT 2016

I agree with Bill and like Armin, I thought we had actually voted on the
increase in dues for Silver and Gold as described above.  I certainly
support the dues increase we discussed.  Silver to $15K and Gold to $55K.
We created a Platinum level at the ELC face-to-face; personally I think
three levels is appropriate, with the possible addition of a "Supporter"
category for donations from individuals and small organization (ie. the
"Dontate Now" button on the web site.)

-Chris

On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 10:42 AM, William Mills <wmills at ti.com> wrote:

> 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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> >> yocto-ab at yoctoproject.org
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> >
> >
>
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-- 
Life is like Linux - it never stands still.
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