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

Fri Apr 22 09:35:20 PDT 2016

On 04/19/2016 07:42 AM, William Mills 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.

As I am with one of those larger Silver members that pay nothing extra,
I understand your frustration and share your frustration.

I am doing my best to influence changes within  MontaVista.

- armin

> 
> 
> 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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>>
>>
> 