Host an ecosystem partners kick-off

[chadwhitacre]

The primary audience for OSS Pledge is companies. However, if successful, we will 10x the funds flowing into FOSS, and we need to have an open dialogue with other ecosystem stakeholders, including individual maintainers, FOSS foundations, and funding platforms.

This ticket is about hosting a kick-off information session, sometime probably in early to mid-September, at least a couple weeks before we launch the OOH campaign (#11). It seems likely that we will need some long-term communication channels possibly including a regular call, but for now let's focus on a kick-off event.

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Two sessions on September 5:

• 6am PST / 9am EST / 3pm CET
• 4pm PST / 7pm EST / 9am AEST

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60 minute agenda:

• 5 - welcome
• 10 - intro to oss pledge
• 40 - open floor for questions and discussion
• 5 - wrap-up

[chadwhitacre]

I sent an email to OSI, and cc'd @Ethan-Arrowood @selviano.

[Ethan-Arrowood]

Started email draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_BnYw205wm4GWR8hZF1w75qIKecWKsGmsv_7Eyc57xw/edit?usp=sharing

If you want comment/edit access just ask and I can add you.

Working on spreadsheet next.

[chadwhitacre]

@selviano and I just had a call with OSI, they are down to participate and September 5 works for them. 👍

[Ethan-Arrowood]

Getting started on the contact spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PB6DQ9vVlX9DyarP1OkSF_BYxiqqULhJQ43FtuqD6xc/edit?usp=sharing

Please let me know if you want edit access.

Would appreciate if folks take a look and include any contact emails they personally know - and you can leave a comment if you'd like to be CC'ed on that contact chain.

I'm hoping to send emails out by Monday the 19th at the latest. As the list gets filled in I will start sending invites earlier too.

[Ethan-Arrowood]

This spreadsheet was generated from the FOSS Foundation list: https://github.com/Punderthings/fossfoundation/blob/main/_foundations/list.json

[Ethan-Arrowood]

I finished the contact list - got as many emails as I could find. Lots of contact forms which will require manual submission. Lets chat today how to execute sending out invites

[chadwhitacre]

Email is out!

I forwarded to contacts at OSI, GitHub, OC, PSF, Django, Ruby Central, PHP, JS, SFC, Sustain ...

[chadwhitacre]

Dialing back to a simpler meeting outcome: informational only, no ask of maintainers / foundations / partners at this point. Getting people excited about this, priming the pumps for the media campaign.

[Ethan-Arrowood]

I'm not sure if everyone is seeing the same replies that i am, but a number of organizations bounced.

A lot of folks are replying with excitement too!

I'll do my best to keep it all organized in the spreadsheet.

@chadwhitacre please send me the event invites as soon as you figure that out. I'd like to get that to people a couple days ahead of time.

Should we consider some sort of Twitter outreach here? maybe a like "Are you an open source organization interested in learning more about OSSPledge? We are hosting info sessions calls on September 5th. DM/Reply for details". I don't think my network is large enough so maybe this is something you could send @chadwhitacre ? Or is your personal contacts + the list good enough for this call?

[chadwhitacre]

How about this for scheduling? Can you test this out @Ethan-Arrowood (et al.) and I'll confirm it's working before we blast it out?

https://cal.com/osspledge/ecosystem-kickoff?month=2024-09&date=2024-09-05

[vladh]

Works for me! I put my name and email in, and got an invite via email.

[Ethan-Arrowood]

Nice works great!

[chadwhitacre]

Awesome, everything looks good on this side as well so I would say let's start sharing this out!

https://cal.com/osspledge/ecosystem-call

(Note URL tweak ... keeping it flexible for possible future usage.)

[chadwhitacre]

https://x.com/chadwhitacre_/status/1825958122621645219

[chadwhitacre]

@Ethan-Arrowood @vladh @selviano I believe I responded on all of the email threads related to the ecosystem kickoff call that were in my court, and cc'd yinz. We're at three guests each for the two sessions right now.

[mkurz]

The primary audience for OSS Pledge is companies.

Hi, I'm an open-source maintainer funded by the community, not a company. Would it be possible for me to join the calls? (I'm very interested in this initiative and would like to listen in as a passive observer, just to hear what will be discussed. Nothing more.)

[chadwhitacre]

@mkurz Thanks for jumping in! You are more than welcome to join us for one or both of the ecosystem calls we are kicking off on September 5. Here is the link to register, lmk if you have any trouble with it.

Our primary objective with the Pledge is to get individual maintainers like yourself paid for your work, so you represent a core constituency we want to have in this conversation. You are welcome to lurk, and you are encouraged to speak up if you like! :) Also, please tell all of your maintainer friends to join as well. 😁

[mkurz]

@chadwhitacre Great, I just registered for the first event. Not sure if I make it to the second one because it's in the middle of the night here. See you next week 👍

[chadwhitacre]

Thank you to everyone who joined one of our calls yesterday! We had 20 attendees across the two calls, representing the following organizations and projects (alphabetical):

1. Distribute Aid
2. Django Software Foundation
3. FreeBSD Foundation
4. Kotlin Foundation
5. Open Source Collective
6. Open Source Initiative
7. Open Source Pledge
8. PHP Foundation
9. Play Framework
10. Ruby Central
11. Rust Foundation
12. Thanks.dev
13. WiX Toolset

Here are the recordings: one, two. I'm going to close this ticket out with that and pick up over in #5 and #11.