Working Group participants,
Per the terms of the charter, the AsciiDoc Working Group (WG), under the direction of the Steering Committee (SC), must establish a budget and fee structure for the 2021 calendar year. In terms of scheduling, the fee structure should be in place by Nov 1, 2020 for invoicing to commence in January 2021 (for Partner Members who elect to continue on). This email outlines how we arrive at this outcome and calls for volunteers from the group to help us to get there.
Establishing a budget and fee structure starts with developing a program plan. As outlined by Paul Buck in the minutes from the July 18 SC Meeting (
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GfRdsI0oRFMbQoOV4sgfR8nrDGfOKU08dXSRgqkxvws/edit), a program plan identifies the priorities the WG wants to accomplish in the next calendar year. A budget is then prepared to support that program plan. The budget informs the fee structure (potentially offset by other sources of funding). The Charter and Participation Agreement must then be updated for 2021 to reflect the new fee structure.
We're asking for several volunteers from the group to team up to draft a program plan and budget for 2021. This team will:
* identify and prioritize the goals the WG should focus on in 2021 by surveying partner members, individual members, committers, and the community
* research the costs of fulfilling each goal (i.e., cost the goals); costs may include, but are not limited to, services, materials, and staffing
* determine what fees the Eclipse Foundation itself asks for and what that money is used for (for example, the cost of the spec compliance program)
* draft a prioritized program plan for 2021 (the Eclipse Foundation can provide examples of program plans for guidance)
* prepare a budget to support the program plan
The team should also explore additional funding sources, such as OpenCollective or direct contributions from non-members, which could either add more room in the budget or lessen the fees for members.
At the very least, we know we need to reserve budget for the following:
* logo design and branding for the AsciiDoc compliance program and Working Group
* design / development of the
asciidoc.org and
asciidoc-lang.org web sites
Once both the plan and budget are drafted, there will be a period of budget negotiation mediated by the SC. Once the budget is set and ratified, the Eclipse Foundation will help develop a fee structure to meet that budget. Ultimately, we want to end up with a plan and budget that motivate current and future members to invest.
We're asking for volunteers to come forward to serve in this capacity. If you're interested, please let us know by next Tuesday (Aug 25, 2020). (Remember that the due date for an approved fee structure—and therefore, program plan and budget—is Nov 1, 2020, so we need to move on this quickly).
Please note that the development of the program plan and budget should be both public and transparent*. The team should use the asciidoc-wg mailing list to survey the group and keep the group informed of the progress. And the resulting program plan and budget should be both open and easy to find.
Sharon and Paul, if anything I stated is off base, please feel free to correct me or clarify. Also, it would be helpful if the Eclipse Foundation could provide an example of a project plan and budget that the team can use for reference.
Best Regards,
-Dan
* If you need documents to be created in the WG's Google Drive to support this effort, please direct that request to the mailing list.
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Dan Allen, Vice President | OpenDevise Inc.
Pronouns: he, him, his
