[@OKau] How can we fund important Open Source projects?

Sun Nov 29 00:51:04 UTC 2015

Hi Rosie,

Don't miss that hangout - they are offering precisely what you need.

You can get all the info from their website anyway - and call/email them
with questions.

Don't wait for them. Get your application started st the site (
http://datastart.com.au/)

It's only open til the 11th Dec and they'll shortlist by the 18th with a
five day workshop for the 20 shortlisted in January.

The process is fast, it's not on government timelines.

Cheers,

Craig

_________________________________________________

Craig Thomler

http://egovau.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/CraigThomler
http://au.linkedin.com/in/craigthomler
http://www.slideshare.net/CraigThomler
<http://www.slideshare.net/CraigThomler%20>

*Mobile:* 0411 780 194 (*International:* +61 411 780 194)
*Phone:* 02 6161 4508 (*International: *+61 2 6161 4508)
*Skype:* craig.thomler

On 26 November 2015 at 08:51, Rosie Williams <BudgetAus at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Craig,
>
> I missed the initial info session but I have tickets to the online hangout
> coming up. Did you go to the Canberra event? Thanks for blogging about the
> charities at
>
>
> http://egovau.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/using-open-data-for-insights-into.html
>
> - I actually got a second wind yesterday when I realised this data has a
> lot of uses I hadn't previously. I've realised the charities data is often
> the only list of services for particular issues across Australia -
> information that I've been searching for elsewhere (like homelessness
> services) and simply doesn't exist so it is going to be a bit of a pity if
> I can't figure out the business side of it. I guess that is why an
> incubator would be really helpful, assuming they help with that kind of
> thing.
>
>
> BTW, I added search by LGA to the charities data yesterday
> https://openaus.net.au/commonwealth/charities/index.php?council=ACT&submit=Go
>
>
> cheers,
>
>
> Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
> ________________________________________
>  NoFibs.com.au <http://nofibs.com.au> - Open Data Reporter | OpenAus
> <https://openaus.net.au> - Founder and Developer
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* okfn-au <okfn-au-bounces at lists.okfn.org> on behalf of Craig
> Thomler <craig.thomler at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 25 November 2015 2:47 PM
>
> *To:* Open Knowledge discussion list for Australia.
> *Subject:* Re: [@OKau] How can we fund important Open Source projects?
>
> Hi Rosie,
>
> Have you considered applying for DataStart? (datastart.com.au) - even if
> you're not sure you're the right person to commercialise what you are doing
> you could access some valuable advice.
>
> I'd also suggest that you speak to some of the start-up centric groups in
> Sydney, run by them what you've been doing and see if they have suggestions
> on ways to commercialise your approaches.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Craig
>
> _________________________________________________
>
> Craig Thomler
>
> http://egovau.blogspot.com
> http://twitter.com/CraigThomler
> http://au.linkedin.com/in/craigthomler
> http://www.slideshare.net/CraigThomler
> <http://www.slideshare.net/CraigThomler%20>
>
> *Mobile:* 0411 780 194 (*International:* +61 411 780 194)
> *Phone:* 02 6161 4508 (*International: *+61 2 6161 4508)
> *Skype:* craig.thomler
>
> On 25 November 2015 at 07:30, Rosie Williams <BudgetAus at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Craig,
>>
>>
>> While what I've done is valuable it is not always the case that people
>> want to know the truth that something reveals. Over time I came to
>> realise that just because I wanted to know the truth about what was going
>> on with top-down government spending it didn't mean that other people were
>> going to embrace it if the data did not sit comfortably within the
>> narratives they were getting from elsewhere. Had the site got into the
>> education system/unis people would be able to use it to form their own
>> conclusions but I don't have the kind of business experience to make those
>> kinds of things happen.
>>
>>
>> So I moved on to giving people information about their specific location-
>> thinking this would be of more interest to people given this info is not
>> available anywhere else as this has never been done before. I don't know if
>> you recall when we met at a startup breakfast meet in Canberra right back
>> after I had first created BudgetAus and as we sat round the table the idea
>> came up of giving people funding by electorate. I don't think either of us
>> at that time thought that was likely to happen. 3 years on this is what
>> I've created at https://openaus.net.au searchable by postcode, LGA, fed
>> electorate etc but I've had almost no interest in it. I find this lack of
>> interest a bit odd.
>>
>>
>> I am scratching my head about that. I've done an enormous amount of work
>> constructing things that have never been done before with data that I have
>> to say is extremely difficult to work with. Perhaps I'm just the wrong
>> person to have done something like this.
>>
>>
>> Perhaps I can sell to someone better placed to turn it into a going
>> concern. I don't think I have those particular skills & contacts and
>> without them the skill & work completed is potentially going to waste. Any
>> ideas?
>> OpenAus
>> Testimonials" I’ve worked with Rosie Williams on budget data transparency
>> since November 2013. Rosie has developed her OpenAus data project into the
>> best government ...
>> Read more... <https://openaus.net.au/>
>>
>>
>> Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
>> ________________________________________
>>  NoFibs.com.au <http://nofibs.com.au> - Open Data Reporter | OpenAus
>> <https://openaus.net.au> - Founder and Developer
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* okfn-au <okfn-au-bounces at lists.okfn.org> on behalf of Craig
>> Thomler <craig.thomler at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, 24 November 2015 4:36 PM
>>
>> *To:* Open Knowledge discussion list for Australia.
>> *Subject:* Re: [@OKau] How can we fund important Open Source projects?
>>
>> Hi Rosie,
>>
>> You should also think about who your customer is.
>>
>> Yes the public (citizens) are technically the audience for governance
>> transparency services, but citizens don't pay for these services, they
>> expect them to be baked into the service offer from government.
>>
>> Generally citizens in Australia don't experience pain as a result of lack
>> of governance transparency, so they don't see the value in expending money
>> or time to alleviate it.
>>
>> You may find customers amongst businesses who see data as a route to
>> profits, but again this is a limited market with quite specific needs, so
>> they're only interested in a subset of the data and very specific services
>> which don't always serve a transparency objective.
>>
>> You might find a few customers amongst NGOs focused on government
>> transparency - however these groups are weak and diffuse in Australia as
>> there's no real pain (again) from failures to be transparent, and they are
>> very restricted in what they can afford to pay.
>>
>> Finally there's government's themselves, who often have the most to gain
>> from transparency initiatives due to the internal return and the perceptual
>> value externally. They have money and interest, but difficult purchase
>> processes to navigate and are unreliable payers (as many in the grant space
>> recognise).
>>
>> Ultimately if you're seeking to commercialize open data you need to look
>> at where there's pain points in the market that people will pay to
>> alleviate.
>>
>> There are opportunities (such as transport data), these are limited but
>> could fund your broader work.
>>
>> You could also consider offering your services to the open data team in
>> NSW government or the DTO - your experience using open data is valuable and
>> something that people on the collection/release side don't always have.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, 24 November 2015, Rosie Williams <BudgetAus at hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Steven
>>>
>>>
>>> I certainly don't expect Paul to answer on behalf of loads of other
>>> people but he was the one who specified public interest and use as the
>>> criteria for decision making wrt OKFN projects so I didn't think asking him
>>> if that info was available publicly was a tough question to answer.
>>>
>>>
>>> I suspect that if the answer to the question I asked about decision
>>> making & data used it is not common knowledge among OKI staff or anyone
>>> else reading this thread then it is not readily available and there'd be
>>> little point asking for it elsewhere.
>>>
>>>
>>> As for how to answer your original question about financial
>>> sustainability you might be right that more people would contribute on the
>>> other list. I'm just following up a thread you started here. I grant you
>>> that my particular questions may get replies from more people elsewhere so
>>> thankyou for your suggestions in that regard.
>>>
>>>
>>> I was involved in a similar discussion months ago on the Influence
>>> Mappers Google group to which the founder of mySociety contributed his
>>> opinions on sustainability based on his experiences
>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/influencemapping/_ecGe9UM_PM/GLUE-PGyBAAJ
>>>
>>> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/influencemapping/_ecGe9UM_PM/GLUE-PGyBAAJ>
>>> Re: [Influence Mappers Group] Re: Introduce yourself
>>> Posted by Tom Steinberg, Aug 16, 2015 3:20 AM
>>> Read more...
>>> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/influencemapping/_ecGe9UM_PM/GLUE-PGyBAAJ>
>>>
>>> I've begun to suspect Tom is right and that having an established
>>> audience you can reach at least gives you the personal momentum required to
>>> continue whereas when there is no one depending on your work and willing to
>>> pay for it, it is pretty hard to justify even to yourself that you are
>>> meeting a need. If you can get sizeable donors where people in the street
>>> are not asked to pay their own $$ for it, then that is one audience but the
>>> audience is not the general public but the donors. Grants may be based on
>>> the number of users but it there is a healthy user base it is difficult to
>>> understand why this is not a source of income instead of grants, why there
>>> is a disjuncture between who is seen to be using a project and who is
>>> paying for it (at least in rich countries).
>>>
>>>
>>> That's why I'm interested in who pays for transparency projects that are
>>> begun in the name of the citizen because it would appear the person in the
>>> street has little use for them if none of them are funded by the public
>>> themselves.
>>>
>>>
>>> I guess there are open data projects people pay to use in Australia-
>>> there are other tender projects out there however these do not contain
>>> political information so are not political transparency projects like mine.
>>> I've actually had the least interest in the project with the most work and
>>> political transparency goals (tenders) and the project with the least
>>> sophistication (parliamentary entitlements) received the most interest
>>> thanks to Bronwyn Bishop. I was curious to know if this lack of engagement
>>> is typical for political transparency projects so I can make the best
>>> decision I can about whether it is right to walk away from transparency
>>> projects in favour of doing something else more popular but perhaps lacking
>>> political significance.
>>>
>>>
>>> Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
>>> ________________________________________
>>>  NoFibs.com.au <http://nofibs.com.au> - Open Data Reporter | OpenAus
>>> <https://openaus.net.au> - Founder and Developer
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *From:* okfn-au <okfn-au-bounces at lists.okfn.org> on behalf of Steven De
>>> Costa <steven.decosta at linkdigital.com.au>
>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, 24 November 2015 8:46 AM
>>> *To:* Open Knowledge discussion list for Australia.
>>> *Subject:* Re: [@OKau] How can we fund important Open Source projects?
>>>
>>> heya Rosie,
>>>
>>> There are lots of people on discuss.okfn.org who can add to such a
>>> discussion. Open Knowledge operates in dozens of countries so it is a bit
>>> tough for Paul to answer on behalf of everyone's experience.
>>>
>>> The CKAN site is referencing Open Knowledge Services, which is a service
>>> group setup to provide project and support for a fee. They recover the cost
>>> of wages on funded engagements.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Steven
>>>
>>>
>>> *STEVEN DE COSTA *|
>>> *EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR *www.linkdigital.com.au
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 24 November 2015 at 08:21, Rosie Williams <BudgetAus at hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I apologise in advance if I am asking difficult questions but I have to
>>>> make decisions about whether or not to continue my own projects which is
>>>> why I'm interested in this thread, what defines a project as successful and
>>>> how financial sustainability is achieved- particularly in projects that
>>>> contribute to transparency given that has been my area of interest to date.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Due to Steven mentioning that he can't afford to fund developers for
>>>> the product he installs, I assumed CKAN relied on volunteer developers but
>>>> according to the CKAN site 'A full-time professional development team
>>>> at the Open Knowledge Foundation maintains CKAN and can provide full
>>>> support and hosting with SLAs. ' However CKAN code also appears to be free
>>>> to use so it is interesting to wonder where the money is coming from to
>>>> build it and whether CKAN owes it's existence to grants or is in some way
>>>> self-sustaining. I'm having trouble determining such things with the
>>>> information provided by OKFN as the financials do not go into that kind of
>>>> detail.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The OKFN financials list a number of sources of income so I guess that
>>>> together with these donations & consultancy fees, volunteers also
>>>> contribute to the worth of the projects listed in the annual report though
>>>> the extent of that contribution does not appear to be measured or collated
>>>> in the reports.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Paul, you mention earlier in the thread that OKFN projects rely on
>>>> public use and interest to continue (as opposed to the contribution of
>>>> volunteer labour). Which data does the OKFN rely on to measure public
>>>> use and interest and is that publicly available?  With a standard
>>>> business it is a bit easier because you have customer numbers as one
>>>> measure of interest but the OKFN does not rely on user pays so I'm curious
>>>> to know what data forms the basis of the decisions taken.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>  NoFibs.com.au <http://nofibs.com.au> - Open Data Reporter | OpenAus
>>>> <https://openaus.net.au> - Founder and Developer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *From:* okfn-au <okfn-au-bounces at lists.okfn.org> on behalf of Paul
>>>> Walsh <paulywalsh at gmail.com>
>>>> *Sent:* Thursday, 12 November 2015 6:18 PM
>>>> *To:* Open Knowledge discussion list for Australia.
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [@OKau] How can we fund important Open Source projects?
>>>>
>>>> Hi Rosie,
>>>>
>>>> I think the question of how open source projects can become
>>>> self-sustaining is a large area of research and diving in, you’ll find that
>>>> there is no single answer, as "open source project” is a signifier for a
>>>> huge range of efforts with diversity in motivation, funding, corporate
>>>> backing, and so on.
>>>>
>>>> Stats on contribution to any OKI open source projects can be found
>>>> using GitHub’s APIs for repository activity - all our code is there.
>>>> Although, I think that your interest is less in “open source projects” and
>>>> more in “open data projects that use (and build) open source software to
>>>> achieve social goals”, in which case I’m not sure that will help greatly.
>>>>
>>>> There are around 20 paid staff at OKI, and a range of additional
>>>> contractors on some projects - usually for development.
>>>>
>>>> "Reliance" on volunteers is something that is hard to measure and
>>>> reason about. Reliance, as a term, suggests to me that you want to
>>>> understand if a project lives or dies based on volunteer contribution
>>>> alone. In general, the answer to that is no.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Paul
>>>>
>>>> On 12 Nov 2015, at 12:28 AM, Rosie Williams <BudgetAus at hotmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi and thanks for the comments.
>>>>
>>>> The conclusion I've come to wrt to discussion of the more general
>>>> question of how important open source projects can become
>>>> self-sustaining  (OKFN projects among them) is that there's limited
>>>> scope for that discussion because there doesn't seem to be easily
>>>> accessible data to inform it.
>>>>
>>>> The OKFN seems to be making ends meet but how that relates to specific
>>>> projects is unclear.
>>>>
>>>> Having stats on the number of paid staff, even an estimate of the
>>>> number of volunteers working on each project, the money coming in to fund
>>>> each project and where it is coming from would be useful and what I would
>>>> expect to see in an annual report. I also think it would be useful to know
>>>> who the visitors to each project/site are so evaluations can be made about
>>>> engagement to learn from what works or does not. Perhaps the reliance on
>>>> volunteers prohibits expectations of gathering & reporting this kind of
>>>> data.
>>>>
>>>> I will probably end up blogging about this to have something more
>>>> comprehensive to pass to the appropriate person.
>>>>
>>>> Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>  NoFibs.com.au <http://nofibs.com.au/> - Open Data Reporter | OpenAus
>>>> <https://openaus.net.au/> - Founder and Developer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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