[FFmpeg-devel] Sovereign Tech Fund

[Michael Niedermayer <michael@niedermayer.cc>]

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Hi all

We are offered to apply for a sponsorship of FFmpeg by the Sovereign Tech Fund (STF).

Please read the following to get a better understanding what STF is about:
(In short it is about maintenance and sustainability, not features)
https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/programs/applications

As some probably already know, Thilo has worked with STF to work out
many details of this. SPI will handle the financials for FFmpeg.
Everyone willing to benefit from this sponsorship must not be a US sanctioned
entity or in a US sanctioned country. And must sign a contractor agreement
and simplified SoW with SPI.
"A SOW purpose is to protect the contracted from doing a
work and not getting paid, and to protect the contractor from paying for a
work which wasn't wanted"

At this point, what we need is a list of Projects so we can submit an application to STF
at or before 12th Feb. (at the 14th they have a meeting and will review our submission)
What STF told us, they need ATM is:

- A scope of work for the project to defined before hand for the upcoming review and eventually a contract. It doesn’t have to be tied to specific people.
- The contract STF will sign with SPI will be a service agreement based on that SOW and milestones. Payment of invoices will be contingent and after delivery (aka performance) of agreed upon milestones.

My suggestion is that we create a Trac WIKI page similar to the ideas
page for GSoC.
On that page everyone can add a project idea.
The requirement is that
1. it must fit in the goals and mission and all of STF
2. it must be about FFmpeg (IIUC non coding tasks are ok)
3. it must have a developer willing to do the work and a monetary
   amount as well as a expected time frame. Of course these don't need to
   be added at the same time you can add an idea and someone else can
   add herself as person doing the work.
   But for consideration it needs to contain all parts
4. The developer doing the work must be qualified. An easy way to ensure
   this, is that (s)he has at least 100 authored commits in FFmpeg.

According to STF, April 1st is a possible start date for the work and STF would
also like to know if the work will be finished in 2024 or 2025 for their
budget.
the SoW can be for example:
"do X by date Y to receive Z", but according to SPI it can also be
"only tasks X are eligible, invoices should be sent by date Y, and payment
 will not exceed the budget Z"
"Ideally, it should also mention the
 parameters for how much each thing done is worth — eg. If you're paying for
 hours or for tasks, and how much — as the SOW is supposed to give the
 contracted person means to know how much they'll be paid for what they do."
"SOW should also note that if no valid tasks are performed, no
 payment will be made."

Next step. For each Project suggestion from the wiki page we will send
a mail to the ML with a copy and paste of the project suggestion.
Once an apparent consensus is reached.

This is the communities opportunity to object or approve the suggestion.
Anyone can call for a formal vote of the GA here too if they do not want
to object/approve in public. But i hope we can avoid that overhead.

All suggested project ideas will then be submitted to STF

We have never done STF before so there likely will be some surprises
and we may need to adjust in case we hit any issues.

and I also didn't expect to be involved in this but i don't want to stand
around and have the opportunity for FFmpeg lost

There can be no late objections here to any project suggestions.
Objections must be before a project suggestion is submitted to STF,
objections after that cannot be considered!

Also once the person doing the work reaches the agreed milestone.
She will submit an invoice with stefano and my help to SPI/STF.
(in the unlikely case of a dispute on reaching a milestone
 it would be decided by the technical committee if the milestone
 has been reached from FFmpegs point of view)

Thanks
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

It is what and why we do it that matters, not just one of them.

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