[FFmpeg-devel] Re: [RFC] Sponsors & Funding

[Michael Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>]

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Hi remi

On Tue, Sep 09, 2025 at 07:29:02PM +0300, Rémi Denis-Courmont via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> Le tiistaina 9. syyskuuta 2025, 15.10.37 Itä-Euroopan kesäaika Michael 
> Niedermayer via ffmpeg-devel a écrit :
> > > 2) A legal entity with clear oversight rules that sponsors can trust and
> > > influence collects funding from sponsors and decides whom to pay for
> > > what.
> > We have that:
> > "Software in the Public Interest (SPI) is a non-profit corporation
> > registered in the state of New York founded to act as a fiscal sponsor for
> > organizations that develop open source software and hardware. Our mission
> > is to help substantial and  significant open source projects by handling
> > their non-technical administrative tasks so that they aren't required to
> > operate their own legal entity."
> 
> How does that enable large sponsors to influence what gets done with the money? 
> How does that take care of drafting and reviewing contracts? That just takes 
> care of fiscal and admin problems. It's great that they do it at all, but it's 
> not remotely sufficient in this context.

With souvereign tech fund we had contracts between people, STF and SPI.

SPI did provide for the legal, accounting and paperwork services here.
We should in fact donate to them for doing that for us. (if we did not yet)


> 
> There is an argument that sponsors should not be allowed that influence. But 
> the flip side is that they won't make big donations without it. It's not a 
> sufficient condition, but it's essentially necessary.

Some sponsors will have specific wishes that we work on "for them".
And some will just want to donate to have their company be a sponsor
and to ensure FFmpeg has the resources to be well maintained.

I see no problem here.
We can do the whole spectrum of options here.
From

* "just take my money"

* informal agreements where everyone knows what the sponsor cares about
  and people respect that and look after it

* formal contracts.
  Like we had with STF for example, with clear deliverables needed for payment to
  happen


> 
> AFAICT, you would need an actual FFmpeg legal entity with proper legal 
> statutes and formal governance, and as part of that governance, a significant 
> place for big sponsors. No offense, but you don't strike me as the type of 
> person with the expertise and skillset to do set up and run such an 
> organisation (me neither).

SPI is a legal entity. And nothing stops us from creating a new legal entity.
I just think using SPI is much simpler, they have experience, they have accountants
they have contacts to the right lawyers.

My plan here really is to use the ideas from this thread to build a proposal
and bring this to a vote.

I have no intend to convince anyone of anything. Just to try to write
down what seems the consensus of the people who support this.
And then count if we have a majority in favor or not.

thx


[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

If one takes all money from those who grow wealth and gives it to those who
do not grow wealth, 10 years later, almost the same people who where wealthy
will be wealthy again, the same people who where poor will be poor again.

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