It seems to me that this thread has turn into a series of counter arguments with no specific direction.
Before we go ahead, can we please clarify: a) What problem are we trying to solve. and b) How is that problem a bigger problem that the one's we are solving and whether that's a problem the foundation should and could solve? 2014-09-16 16:54 GMT+02:00 Michael Catanzaro <mcatanz...@gnome.org>: > On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 13:18 +0100, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > > that's not really a competitive salary for an experience developer, > > since we're talking about improving the developer experience of the > > platform. it may be barely enough for a part time developer, like it's > > barely enough for a part time system administrator (we were very lucky > > to have Andrea cover the role), but for a full time employee you're > > ignoring the fact that a salary before taxes translates to at least > > 1.5x to 2.5x the cost for the employer, depending on the geographical > > location of the Foundation and of the employee. since the Foundation > > is in the US, it would also imply a lot of administrative costs in > > order to employ somebody who's not US based, and who may be able to > > ask for less. > > > > in short: 40k dollars of Foundation money do not even remotely cover a > > full time employee. > > I know you're living in an area of the US with a dramatically higher > than usual cost of living and also higher than usual salaries, and also > that the Foundation's current employees are well-paid, but that's > actually a completely normal income for a full-time American. This is > actually pretty difficult to Google; the relevant statistic would be > median personal wage for only full-time employees (which would be > pre-tax; except for the employer half of social security and Medicare > taxes, which I did forget: that'd be -6% I guess, so let's say $37000 > remains for salary), which I couldn't find after about 15 minutes of > searching, but I bet it's somewhere in the $40000-$50000 range. (Most > "income" statistics are indeed after-tax, but those would show lower > medians. E.g. [1] is combined after-tax income for an entire household > (so often more than one worker): not what we're comparing here, though. > The blue columns in [2] are the stat we want, but I bet that number > includes part-time jobs and is therefore too low.) > > It's not *competitive* for a software developer, like I said, but it's > surely sufficient. (How did we wind up at the $40000 number anyway? > Surely that's much more than an OPW. I guess that's the cost for an > entire GUADEC?) > > I'd also be concerned that the money would only be sufficient to hire > one full-time developer, as opposed to several students, and it's not > really encouraging to volunteer developers that the Foundation pays one > particular developer. I'd rather direct it towards specific projects > instead. > > > we can also have public bids for working on specific areas of > > interests — like we did for accessibility and privacy — and those bids > > can be answered by companies and individuals. the issue, at that > > point, becomes defining goals and deliverables, in order to award the > > money. > > This is the approach I think would be more beneficial. The question is > whether spending part or all of our OPW money on a particular contract > project would or would not be more valuable to GNOME. I have no clue. I > like it when students continue to contribute after the end of the > project, though. > > Michael > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income > [2] http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > > -- Cheers, Alberto Ruiz
_______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
