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diff --git a/doc/neps/nep-0046-sponsorship-guidelines.rst b/doc/neps/nep-0046-sponsorship-guidelines.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a9c2d85a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/neps/nep-0046-sponsorship-guidelines.rst @@ -0,0 +1,241 @@ +.. _NEP46: + +===================================== +NEP 46 — NumPy Sponsorship Guidelines +===================================== + +:Author: Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> +:Status: Draft +:Type: Process +:Created: 2020-12-27 +:Resolution: <url> (required for Accepted | Rejected | Withdrawn) + + +Abstract +-------- + +This NEP provides guidelines on how the NumPy project will acknowledge +financial and in-kind support. + + +Motivation and Scope +-------------------- + +In the past few years the NumPy project has gotten significant financial +support, as well as dedicated work time for maintainers to work on NumPy. There +is a need to acknowledge that support - funders and organizations expect or require +it, it's helpful when looking for new funding, and it's the right thing to do. +Furthermore, having a clear policy for how NumPy acknowledges support is +helpful when searching for new support. + +This NEP is aimed at both the NumPy community - who can use it when looking for +support and acknowledging existing support - and at past, current and +prospective sponsors, who often want or need to know what they get in return +for their support (other than a healthier NumPy). + +The scope of this proposal includes: + +- direct financial support, employers providing paid time for NumPy maintainers + and regular contributors, and in-kind support such as free hardware resources or + services. +- where and how NumPy acknowledges support (e.g., logo placement on the website). +- the amount and duration of support which leads to acknowledgement. +- who in the NumPy project is responsible for sponsorship related topics, and + how to contact them. + + +How NumPy will acknowledge support +---------------------------------- + +There will be two different ways to acknowledge financial and in-kind support, +one to recognize significant active support, and another one to recognize +support received in the past and smaller amounts of support. + +Entities who fall under "significant active supporter" we'll call Sponsor. +The minimum level of support given to NumPy to be considered a Sponsor are: + +- $30,000/yr for unrestricted financial contributions +- $60,000/yr for financial contributions for a particular purpose +- $100,000/yr for in-kind contributions + +The rationale for the above levels is that unrestricted financial contributions +are typically the most valuable for the project, and the hardest to obtain. +The opposite is true for in-kind contributions. The dollar value of the levels +also reflect that NumPy's needs have grown to the point where we need at least +a few paid developers in order to effectively support our user base and +continue to move the project forward. Financial support at or above these +levels is needed to be able to make a significant difference. + +Sponsors will get acknowledged through: + +- a small logo displayed on the front page of the NumPy website +- prominent logo placement on https://numpy.org/about/ +- logos displayed in talks about NumPy by maintainers +- announcements of the sponsorship on the NumPy mailing list and the numpy-team + Twitter account + +In addition to Sponsors, we already have the concept of Institutional Partner +(defined in NumPy's +`governance document <https://numpy.org/devdocs/dev/governance/index.html>`__), +for entities who employ a NumPy maintainer and let them work on NumPy as part +of their official duties. The governance document doesn't currently define a +minimum amount of paid maintainer time needed to be considered for partnership. +Therefore we propose that level here, roughly in line with the sponsorship +levels: + +- 6 person-months/yr of paid work time for one or more NumPy maintainers or + regular contributors + +Institutional Partners get the same benefits as Sponsors, in addition to what +is specified in the NumPy governance document. + +Finally, a new page on the website (https://numpy.org/funding/, linked from the +About page) will be added to acknowledge all current and previous sponsors, +partners, and any other entities and individuals who provided $5,000 or more of +financial or in-kind support. This page will include relevant details of +support (dates, amounts, names and purpose); no logos will be used on this +page. The rationale for the $5,000 minimum level is to keep the amount of work +maintaining the page reasonable; the level is the equivalent of, e.g., one GSoC +or a person-week's worth of engineering time in a Western country, which seems +like a reasonable lower limit. + + +Implementation +-------------- + +The following content changes need to be made: + +- Add a section with small logos towards the bottom of the `numpy.org + <https://numpy.org/>`__ website. +- Create a full list of historical and current support and deploy it to + https://numpy.org/funding. +- Update the NumPy governance document for changes to Institutional Partner + eligibility requirements and benefits. +- Update https://numpy.org/about with details on how to get in touch with the + NumPy project about sponsorship related matters (see next section). + + +A NumPy Funding Team +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +At the moment NumPy has only one official body, the Steering Council, and no +good way to get in touch with either that body or any person or group +responsible for funding and sponsorship related matters. The way this is +typically done now is to somehow find the personal email of a maintainer, and +email them in private. There is a need to organize this more transparently - a +potential sponsor isn't likely to inquire through the mailing list, nor is it +easy for a potential sponsor to know if they're reaching out to the right +person in private. + +https://numpy.org/about/ already says that NumPy has a "funding and grants" +team, however that is not the case. We propose to organize this team, name team +members on it, and add the names of those team members plus a dedicated email +address for the team to the About page. + + +Status before this proposal +--------------------------- + +Acknowledgement of support +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +At the time of writing (Dec 2020), the logos of the four largest financial +sponsors and two institutional partners are displayed on +https://numpy.org/about/. The `Nature paper about NumPy <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2649-2>`__ +mentions some early funding. No comprehensive list of received funding and +in-kind support is published anywhere. + +Decisions on which logos to list on the website have been made mostly by the +website team. Decisions on which entities to recognize as Institutional Partner +have been made by the NumPy Steering Council. + + +NumPy governance, decision-making and financial oversight +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +*This section is meant as context for the reader, to help put the rest of this +NEP in perspective, and perhaps answer questions the reader has when reading +this as a potential sponsor.* + +NumPy has a formal governance structure defined in +`this governance document <https://numpy.org/devdocs/dev/governance/index.html>`__). +Decisions are made by consensus among all active participants in a discussion +(typically on the mailing list), and if consensus cannot be reached then the +Steering Council takes the decision (also by consensus). + +NumPy is a sponsored project of NumFOCUS, a US-based 501(c)3 nonprofit. +NumFOCUS administers NumPy funds, and ensures they are spent in accordance with +its mission and nonprofit status. In practice, NumPy has a NumFOCUS +subcommittee (with its members named in the NumPy governance document) who can +authorize financial transactions. Those transactions, for example paying a +contractor for a particular activity or deliverable, are decided on by the +NumPy Steering Council. + + +Alternatives +------------ + +*Tiered sponsorship levels.* We considered using tiered sponsorship levels, and +rejected this alternative because it would be more complex, and not necessarily +communicate the right intent - the minimum levels are for us to determine how +to acknowledge support that we receive, not a commercial value proposition. +Entities typically will support NumPy because they rely on the project or want +to help advance it, and not to get brand awareness through logo placement. + +*Listing all donations*. Note that in the past we have received many smaller +donations, mostly from individuals through NumFOCUS. It would be great to list +all of those contributions, but given the way we receive information on those +donations right now, that would be quite labor-intensive. If we manage to move +to a more suitable platform, such as `Open Collective <https://opencollective.com/>`__, +in the future, we should reconsider listing all individual donations. + + +Related Work +------------ + +Here we provide a few examples of how other project handle sponsorship +guidelines and acknowledgements. + +*Scikit-learn* has a narrow banner with logos at the bottom of +https://scikit-learn.org, and a list of present funding and past sponsors at +https://scikit-learn.org/stable/about.html#funding. Plus a separate section +"Infrastructure support" at the bottom of that same About page. + +*Jupyter* has logos of sponsors and institutional partners in two sections on +https://jupyter.org/about. Some subprojects have separate approaches, for +example sponsors are listed (by using the `all-contributors +<https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors>`__ bot) in the README for +`jupyterlab-git <https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-git>`__. For a recent +discussion on that, see `here <jupyterlab-git acknowledgements discussion>`_. + +*NumFOCUS* has a large banner with sponsor logos on its front page at +https://numfocus.org, and a full page with sponsors at different sponsorship +levels listed at https://numfocus.org/sponsors. They also have a +`Corporate Sponsorship Prospectus <https://numfocus.org/blog/introducing-our-newest-corporate-sponsorship-prospectus>`__, +which includes a lot of detail on both sponsorship levels and benefits, as well +as how that helps NumFOCUS-affiliated projects (including NumPy). + + +Discussion +---------- + +Mailing list thread(s) discussing this NEP: TODO + + +References and Footnotes +------------------------ + +- `Inside NumPy: preparing for the next decade <https://github.com/numpy/archive/blob/master/content/inside_numpy_presentation_SciPy2019.pdf>`__ presentation at SciPy'19 discussing impact of the first NumPy grant. +- `Issue <https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/13393>`__ and + `email <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/numpy-discussion/2019-April/079371.html>`__ + where IBM offered a $5,000 bounty for VSX SIMD support +- `JupyterLab Corporate Engagement and Contribution Guide <https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab/blob/master/CORPORATE.md>`__ + + +.. _jupyterlab-git acknowledgements discussion: https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-git/pull/530 + + +Copyright +--------- + +This document has been placed in the public domain. |