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According to their website[0] their current balance is $97,012.47 USD, and their annual budget is ~ $47,327.66 USD, so they're probably not too badly unerfunded

According to their website[0] their current balance is $97,012.47 USD, and their annual budget is ~ $47,327.66 USD, so they're probably not too badly unerfunded. [0] https://opencollective.com/obsproject#section-budget https://opencollective.com/obsproject#section-budget

tyingq 6y ago
Good find! It's pretty clear that the value provided exceeds the value provided.
skinnymuch 6y ago
That budget appears to mean no one is getting paid for OBS. The project is huge so likely a lot of hours are committed to it.
- kbenson 6y ago
  Or no one is getting paid full time. That might be a good thing for a project like this. A full time employee might bring with it some perverse incentives (if it reaches a state where the community isn't clamoring for a full year's worth an an engineer's time, what happens to that engineer when the work is gone, or what if they find things that aren't needed to justify more work?) If their current balance is over two years worth of their annual budget and the users are happy with the project and how its progressing, I'm happy to think they're in a good place until I hear evidence to convince me otherwise.
  - alex_hitchins 6y ago
    Surely this enables them to just keep up, rather than having the freedom to innovate?
    - kbenson 6y ago
      It's open source, innovation is not necessarily tied to money. It may or may not be tied to it or helpful in some way. It does open a whole bunch of questions up though, like who gets the money, what if an individual contributes more work than the paid employee and the salary? I've seen situations where people are upset about where grant money is allocated and who it's allocated to, so I imagine having a person paid a salary is susceptible to similar possible community problems. That's not to say money necessarily causes a problem, just that it can, and introducing a monetary incentive into a system that was working well with non-monetary incentives (traditional open source) might complicate things. Another way to look at it is that open source is primarily a social system and context, and mixing a financial system with a social one often leads to problems as different aspects of our lives cause friction we're generally ill-equiped to deal with. Just look at any of the reports of people that have won large amounts in the lottery and had a negative outcome in their social lives.
  - Warchamp7 6y ago
    Yeah currently the OC funds are mainly used for expenses, such as a community developer needing a piece of hardware to add or work on support for something, hosting fees, etc. I think a few bounties have been given out as well, but there isn't an entirely formal process for those yet.

tyingq 6y ago

Good find! It's pretty clear that the value provided exceeds the value provided.

skinnymuch 6y ago

That budget appears to mean no one is getting paid for OBS. The project is huge so likely a lot of hours are committed to it.

kbenson 6y ago
Or no one is getting paid full time. That might be a good thing for a project like this. A full time employee might bring with it some perverse incentives (if it reaches a state where the community isn't clamoring for a full year's worth an an engineer's time, what happens to that engineer when the work is gone, or what if they find things that aren't needed to justify more work?) If their current balance is over two years worth of their annual budget and the users are happy with the project and how its progressing, I'm happy to think they're in a good place until I hear evidence to convince me otherwise.
- alex_hitchins 6y ago
  Surely this enables them to just keep up, rather than having the freedom to innovate?
  - kbenson 6y ago
    It's open source, innovation is not necessarily tied to money. It may or may not be tied to it or helpful in some way. It does open a whole bunch of questions up though, like who gets the money, what if an individual contributes more work than the paid employee and the salary? I've seen situations where people are upset about where grant money is allocated and who it's allocated to, so I imagine having a person paid a salary is susceptible to similar possible community problems. That's not to say money necessarily causes a problem, just that it can, and introducing a monetary incentive into a system that was working well with non-monetary incentives (traditional open source) might complicate things. Another way to look at it is that open source is primarily a social system and context, and mixing a financial system with a social one often leads to problems as different aspects of our lives cause friction we're generally ill-equiped to deal with. Just look at any of the reports of people that have won large amounts in the lottery and had a negative outcome in their social lives.
- Warchamp7 6y ago
  Yeah currently the OC funds are mainly used for expenses, such as a community developer needing a piece of hardware to add or work on support for something, hosting fees, etc. I think a few bounties have been given out as well, but there isn't an entirely formal process for those yet.