I already said this.
Who said that the “lack of developers” isn’t intentional?
The positive side of this would be - it’s the basic premise of PM: the less people decides, the better the decision is. Never more than 5. So, how many devs we actually have?
I won’t spread FUD with the negative interpretations of the hypotheses. Not my area of interest, nor the project could benefit from it.
Please find below the proposal I will be sending in the coming days via email, I’ve incorporated most of your complaints but some remain unresolved or are only partially resolved.
And I say proposal but I have no intention of trying to speak at the Qubes OS summit, but if someone out there believes the below version is good then they are free to do so.
Proposal
“The only difference between a medicine and a poison is the dosage.”
In large doses, greed is ruining the world, but in small doses it could become the cure that saves the world.
Idea
There should be an affiliate program where for every donation dollar secured, the affiliate gets a small cut (I.e. 10%).
Recover Setup Costs: Charge each person trying to become an affiliate a certain amount
No Tracking Links
Instead of tracking links, the person donating can optionally say why they are donating (i.e. if they want to support the affiliate they select them or they can leave it blank to give it all to Qubes).
Branding
Instead of using the word affiliate, we could use a less offensive term like ambassador. And given the uniqueness of this program, it’s fair to change the term. For simplicity, I’ll continue to refer to them as affiliates below.
Compliance
A single person be in charge of compliance so programmers can focus on programming. This person must actively recruit affiliates and must be a volunteer unless the program reaches the point that they can afford to pay someone.
Style 1-More Risk More Reward More Compliance
Almost anybody should be allowed to become an affiliate (I.e. me).
In order to “cash out”, the person must have at least $100 dollars worth of rewards. Rewards must not expire at any time.
(Optional) Half of all rewards can only be used to purchase or discount Qubes OS certified hardware
Those that have less than $100 worth of rewards would be considered a “future affiliate” rather than an actual one, and be designated as such in legal documents.
Style 2-Less Risk Less Reward Less Compliance
A limited number of people applying are selected to become affiliates based on their user pool, such as youtubers, game makers, influencers, etc.
In this case, only those selected can be charged to join and can be charged a significant amount.
Timing
With fears of AI on the rise, more and more people will seek security options such as Qubes OS that can also run traditional options such as Windows.
Pros
-More donations
-Shouldn’t affect existing or ongoing donations
-More awareness can lead to more partnerships globally
-More users can mean more protesters or emergency donations in the face of government shutdown/blocking
Cons
-Setup Costs
-Incalculable Value
-Backlash from open source purists
-Backlash from government? Although plenty of organizations have affiliate programs and money laundering is unlikely at 10% return
Forum Discussion :
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
What exactly do you mean as an Affiliate?
There has been suggested to have something like the “Apple App Store.”
To offer Specific Qubes, such as already built Qubes for other OS’s. For VPN already installed, Rather than a list of commands to be entered.
I suspect that few think this was a good idea. Partially I guess is that they feel each person should be responsible for their own Security/Privacy/Anonymity rather than trusting someone else.
Also, The interest in getting more money for Qubes, even if it is just donations. Can encourage development to be focused on gaining money, rather than the current purpose.
Unless you’re suggesting people write their own Oses, you’re always trusting someone else. How do you know their isn’t a zero day vulnerability in Qubes OS source code? Trust is essential to life, or everything breaks down.
Also that apple app store can be a part of this, affiliates would be making VMs as part of their pitch.
The guy who coined that phrase ([Aureolus] Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim AKA Paracelsus) died from a severe mercury overdose. The whole thing that follows that phrase has a certain tragicomic quality to it.
I didn’t know that haha, and I appreciate the danger in dancing on the “wrong side”, but I think if done wisely and cautiously it’s worthwhile.
I think you should review and refine your proposal because although I think your intentions are good, there are aspects that can result in total destruction.
Recover Setup Costs: Charge each person trying to become an affiliate a certain amount
You should probably not propose that at all.
No Tracking Links
Instead of tracking links, the person donating can optionally say why they are donating (i.e. if they want to support the affiliate they select them or they can leave it blank to give it all to Qubes).
I repeat my earlier question: why would anyone want to support the affiliate instead of the project? Also, why would one want to explain why one is donating?
As of today: if one wants to support the project, one can simply link to its donation page without tracking. But if one wants to make money from the project, he will want to make more and overdoing all that can result in a bad image for Qubes (“Oh… another Qubes affiliate that spams us”).
Branding
Instead of using the word affiliate, we could use a less offensive term like ambassador. And given the uniqueness of this program, it’s fair to change the term. For simplicity, I’ll continue to refer to them as affiliates below.
This implies an expectation that donors are some gullible people who Qubes is willing to trick.
Style 1-More Risk More Reward More Compliance
Almost anybody should be allowed to become an affiliate (I.e. me).
What does almost mean? Who will not be allowed and why?
In order to “cash out”, the person must have at least $100 dollars worth of rewards. Rewards must not expire at any time.
That needs more attention. If one has $99 rewards (i.e. the project received 9*99 = $891) one does not deserve to be paid. Meanwhile, 10 years pass and those $99 have a different value (likely smaller).
Or what if the project gets the money and closes? Think e.g. 1000 affiliates * $99 unpaid ($891,000 benefit to the project). - Hello, corruption.
(Optional) Half of all rewards can only be used to purchase or discount Qubes OS certified hardware
When one donates, one doesn’t task the project to implement a feature, i.e. one doesn’t say how the money must be used. So, the project cannot tell the donor what to do with one’s money.
Style 2-Less Risk Less Reward Less Compliance
A limited number of people applying are selected to become affiliates based on their user pool, such as youtubers, game makers, influencers, etc.
Porn stars?
Man, I was sceptical at first, but now you got me right there. 
I have changed my mind and now support this for some reason.
“You should probably not propose that at all.”
You’re right, it’s kind of a hat on a hat what with the cash out minimum. Also it would be weird since no one else does it, my bad.
“I repeat my earlier question: why would anyone want to support the affiliate instead of the project? Also, why would one want to explain why one is donating?”
Well the affiliate would explain that doing so will help them out, and people might be generous and do so.
“(Oh… another Qubes affiliate that spams us)”
Alright, I’ll note that affiliates be heavily cautioned against aggressive behavior, and suggest a reporting mechanism. And this is more reason for style 2 at least at first.
“This implies an expectation that donors are some gullible people who Qubes is willing to trick.”
Well we could be transparent about it (I.e we call them ambassadors instead of affiliates because the program doesn’t use any tracking, and because they are securing donations instead of securing subscriptions/purchases).
“What does almost mean? Who will not be allowed and why?”
Well some things the Qubes Team can decide, obviously there should be some minimum criteria or disqualifications.
“Meanwhile, 10 years pass and those $99 have a different value (likely smaller).”
Well I have seen this type of setup in other organizations so it should be legal, and why would someone not try and secure that last dollar? The whole point is to incentivize the affiliate to reach a certain minimum within a year or two, $100 is a just a placeholder but I’ll lower it to 50 to limit aggressive behavior. Also, the idea is to keep the organization from making countless micro transactions for say $10. And again transparency is key.
“Or what if the project gets the money and closes? Think e.g. 1000 affiliates * $99 unpaid ($891,000 benefit to the project). - Hello, corruption.”
Well bankruptcy is a special case, a lot of people get screwed in bankruptcy, employees don’t get severance and so on. And if the project closes then what’s left to protect? The reputation of a dead project?
“So, the project cannot tell the donor what to do with one’s money.”
Well I labeled as optional for a reason but keeping money in your ecosystem is nothing new, it’s like stores giving you credit instead of just giving you money. And if the terms are clearly and transparently explained the potential affiliate can just choose not to join but again optional.
“Porn stars?”
Yeah that could be a disqualifying criteria like mentioned above…you do know that not all youtubers/streamers are porn stars lol?
I like your enthusiasm and I think your intentions are good. Unfortunately, I have seen too many cases of people abusing that. Unfortunately, the moment there is incentive there is mischief - human nature.
Well some things the Qubes Team can decide, obviously there should be some minimum criteria or disqualifications.
That would require profiling of affiliates - not something many would adore.
And if the project closes then what’s left to protect? The reputation of a dead project?
What I described is not financially damaging to the project but to the affiliates.
Yeah that could be a disqualifying criteria like mentioned above…you do know that not all youtubers/streamers are porn stars lol?
Initially, I was going to write “Politicians?” but I chose the supercategory as the less immoral term.
Well, I’ve sent an updated version of my proposal to the Qubes Team, I leave the rest in their hands.
I’ve referenced this forum discussion in the email, so it’s possible they’ll read any unaddressed comments.
Thanks for your time and thoughts.
For what it’s worth I think it’s a good idea to think of ways to raise funds. There is a kind of purist mentality in FOSS users where it kind of seems like the moment fund raising gets brought up they immediately get concerned and defensive because some form of purity will be lost. I think that’s a sad tendency in the FOSS community and I think it results in way less ambitious FOSS projects.
I applaud you for trying to think of creative ways to raise funds. I don’t think I see the affiliate program working very well and I agree with a lot of the commenters about it being a medium sized logistic and PR challenge while having kind of unclear projected benefit.
That being said I think the way that most of FOSS funding works today is dooming FOSS to stay small and weak. The point of freedom in FOSS was never to be gratis but rather to be libre. People need to open up their pockets a little bit more. Ideally you donate to your favorite projects on a schedule since that has the least amount of purity lost but I think we should be way more OK with purity being traded for funds when donations don’t meet the goals.
If anyone has ever looked at the monero projects funding model I think it’s quite interesting. They have a repository of ideas that need funding and people can individually fund those ideas. That way the things that are most important are prioritized, funding is secured and people have an incentive to donate.
Personally I would be totally OK with FOSS projects in general and the Qubes project in particular to start asking for funding for specific features.
Another funding idea which I think is very appealing is to give vanity decals for donations. The forum could have something like a donation badge or whatever.
The negative of that idea is that people may start expecting something in return for their donations if this is too common, the upside is that people get something back and it’s essentially free to give.
In today’s world, ambition is the quality of the expropriator. The values FOSS stands for are different, so no wonder FOSS communities react as you describe. The moment one starts to “innocently” trade values for profit, only trade remains.
Donations for a feature sounds like a good idea. The only cons I can think if is that it may be a way to drive the project into a particular direction through payment. I guess that’s a separate discussion though.
In today’s world, ambition is the quality of the expropriator.
This mindset really irks me. The ambitious people who make quality are going to (have already?) left. Not all of them of course, there are still examples of high quality FOSS projects like Qubes and Linux and several others. But if you look around the tech market you’ll find a magnitude more of proprietary stuff. You’ll find that the only way that FOSS projects survive is by the benevolent donations of large corporations and NGOs. The only surviving business model on the internet is the server-side product because if you do a client-side product people hate it due to not being open source and if you make it open source they refuse to pay for it.
We end up in a shitty Nash equilibrium where we get the worst of all worlds and the reason is that the people who claim to be the most principled are so principled that they refuse to find any workable and realistic solution for how funding should be done for FOSS projects.
I might be overstating things, obviously this and other projects have survived. Mostly thanks to corpos. Thank you corpos for doing the thing we regular humans should be doing. (then again we’re here because the Qubes project says they lack funding)
A separate discussion I wanted to start for a while now. If you need any help to get this going for Qubes you have me.
To those who you thanked, donations (and “charity”) are nothing but financial tools, serving their own goals and strategies. The scale and intent of their action are incomparable to those of individuals who donate.
The fact that FOSS projects survive using such funds can be a positive side effect, if used wisely, but that doesn’t mean one can mix pure and dirty water and receive pure water.