 So guys, how are you doing? You're all very welcome. And thanks for coming for this last minute, kind of dropped in talk It's been something that's been kind of in my mind for a while because I have a small business We're a tiny company in the scheme of things, you know 1.6 million turnover across two companies. It's not huge, but I will say that BSD and the various different BSD projects and the cross-pollination between them The software that results from that has made my life my working life easier and better And so I just wanted to kind of explore ways in which small businesses like mine can improve Working conditions or conditions for developers in the project and also just to see how How we can connect Small business with with who benefit from BSD With BSD developers to encourage more developers to do more things that I'm hot they love and do And so I see so many other companies doing it You know and so wireless connectors give me an idea. I'm CEO for want of a better word and We're a small ISP operating in Ireland. That's that's our business And we do donate to the BSD foundation both personally and with company resources But it's modest. I will say that it's modest What we've done there and we've also funded some features and changes so open BSD where we would actually so When I met with Theo the first time in BSD can I said so have a couple of ideas a couple of things I'd like to Get someone to do and you know, what way do I interface with the community to do this? And he's just talked to the developer that you think is Suitable for doing this. So it's a very kind of much like talk to go find someone who's interested and And it's between you and them and so actually was MPI he did a bit of work for us and on protective bridge ports which was basically like bridge horizon if you've used Other vendors equipment which had a bridge port. So the protective port groups where you would isolate clients from each other That was a feature that we modestly funded but and I can safely say the Interaction or the experience from that was very positive for our company. So we managed to get what we wanted in our favorite OS and The community obviously benefit, but also I actually got a better specified products or I won't say product is the wrong word But I got a better solution than what I actually asked for Which is kind of rare normally you get what you asked for and not what you want But there was other people who had reviewed the code and the changes and it was actually really positive. So And then there's static arp which is kind of an unusual one in McCarty the color to apply only in space They were if someone asked you for your app request or your app entry They'll ask you you can respond But you don't actually populate and our dynamic ARP table yourself So it was kind of funny when I discussed that with Henning. He was like, well, we support ARP being on and We support it being off. So you kind of wanted half on and half off So it should be fairly straightforward And I suppose these are just examples of small little tweaks because they were they weren't huge by you know They weren't like VMM or a huge undertaking like that But in ways by someone actually saying right I can pay someone to do this the whole community benefit from it And currently I suppose the main Funding that we're doing at the moment is the NSH courts So we're working with Stefan Spirling and Chris Capuccio on the network shell project It is a port is not a base or anything like that But the intention is that it would be fully aligned with the open BSD design principles Has a bit to go but I'm really enjoying the work on that project As well as from where I look at it big companies already fund big initiatives in BSD today, and that's a really positive thing Either truth the foundations are extensive employment of BSD developers. So we see that anyway But there's many things to improve And it's like the small little things that might make BSD a more viable solution for small businesses around and so It's about trying to get all for instance if there was a bridge ports or some feature and bridge that was needed for ISPs can we get like five ISPs together to say right we can fund this so it's a small Minute it's a mini project. It's not huge. It's not going to be a massive change to the US But at least it connects one it gives a developer funding and two it actually moves BSD in a way that it's helping And I suppose it's customer base if you for want of a better word And so it was kind of that was one of the The things that I would like to say because for me I'd love to do all the funding and all that but I've limited resources And so is there are there other companies like us out there that want to make an impact a small impact on Little pain points for BSD for them currently and I suppose it was just that idea now I'm like I don't have a solution here. I'm actually just saying Okay, I like but in ways what I'd be saying to the businesses out there Imagine paying 10% of the cost of You know because ten other companies came in and you get a hundred percent of the benefit That's the I suppose the says bitch, but in ways. It's also making I suppose little changes More accessible to small businesses so that they can even benefit more from BSD And I suppose from the BSD point of view We'd be hoping to help developers be able to work at least part-time in BSD and be paid for it To fund their their own lives because otherwise, you know, we do have people have to eat as well And they have to so you know if they can actually work on something that they really love I think it's a it's a positive thing It's a this is also just to be clear it's not about redistributing it I'm not saying okay Stop funding free BSD here stuff funding over BSD foundation or any net BSD was more about how do we get tap SME's ability to spend a few small amounts of money to actually bring that money in to bear and Give one the developer to direct benefit of that and to in some way we also have to deal With the issue of the cost of maintaining that code going forward So you may develop a lot of code, but if it has to be you know to make it MP safe or something like that There's costs long-term cost that needs to be considered So it was even just to see how how we could work with the various different foundations to allow that to work across the different projects And there's just something that's been on my mind for a while and I'm like I will open this up to comments criticism suggestions because I think this is an important And like for me like I don't think I'm unique I think there's other companies like us that can do that we can work with to fund Small micro improvements across the entire stack in any of the operating systems I suppose I was thinking of maybe an ideas are a funding clearinghouse So what happens if a company like me can't Can't afford to fund a project completion Well, it just doesn't start Like well, we can't afford it. So you kind of kick it to touch to use the rugby terminology for the French well World Cup, you know to my French friends But I suppose It's not going to start and that's so but if we can create a problem description And we just explore it with a reputable developers and the developers been working on that area in whichever BSD And get an idea of what's the effort required to get the project off the ground and then Someone says like to in order to put the idea up. Someone says I'll put up 10% or 20% of the funding Is it can we get a hundred percent and then the project starts? And so it was that type of idea just to see The impact to do so issues and Issues to manage and ideas are welcome in these ones So we did talk about the impact of denated code Finance code on the projects and their volunteer communities The proportion of fees that should be paid to the foundation in question Which I do think it's appropriate to do that because there is an overhead in managing the the ingestion of the code into the into base or into the various different systems And I suppose then there's the issue of collecting money from the SMEs because I've had that where people have committed and then they've pulled back Which sucks by the way? And The other side of it is and then there's the developer management like you know developers are humans And you know the payment milestones. How do we deal with that? for me Like we've had a fairly I'd like to say we enjoyed a very relaxed Relationship with the developers where you know there was a fair bit of trust put in the developers already But being honest that trust was earned by their Contributions to the open-source community already so it's like you know So if someone tells me like MPI says something can't be done without a rewrite Who who am I to say actually no MPI? I think my C skills are way better than yours Which they're not like at all. I think everyone knows that so but you know what I mean like so But you can you can kind of say right so, you know, there's obviously for we try and avoid disputes and all that As well as one of the points I'd probably make is funding is not democratic. So it's not like a committee It's literally like, you know, if you get 10 companies who can fund this idea First then it's likely that that idea will be done, you know, so you know, as in people put them I suppose our companies put their money where their mouths are but of course the other side of that is that Success breeds success and chances are when they fix that problem. There'll be another problem or another thing to improve And certainly that's that's my experience with you know, my wonderful journey with the various BSTs that we use Open BST in particular That I'm always like finding something new to do with it I'm like, oh just need this other thing and you know an inference. So I suppose that's I suppose that was just a brief kind of Kind of a brain dump of kind of some of the things I was just thinking as a challenge for a small business And how let's say I can participate in that BSD ecosystem And then maybe how to encourage other companies like me to do that and Ultimately the benefit I think or what I'm hoping is that more Developers and younger people coming out of college can actually choose to do this type of stuff You know with maybe the mentoring of a senior developer so that you know, you know, cuz you know When we're young we don't value experience when you're older you realize how valuable experience is, you know Yeah, you know, so I suppose so it's just so I'd open up the floor to questions our comments are So it's kind of like community or crowdsourcing, but maybe slightly more structured Just any comments questions welcome My own personal experience is going to the BSD conferences and getting to know people It's not like pressing someone's flesh because if you are going to work with them and test their It's getting to know them. I Mean if you look at I suppose, you know diffs, you know If you see their previous diffs if you're if you have people in house, you'll know their contributions to date you know You know, you're probably not going to put a huge amount of trust in someone who's put in a three-line diff Sorry, I think I think a three-line diff is frowned upon in certain societies But you know if you put it, you know, but if it's someone who's been consistently delivering high-quality code and and doing impressive stuff, you know, you know So you can look at it the CVS or gish or you know, whatever version management that project is using But realistically, I think when you actually go to a conference like this and you meet one developer a developer Quite frequently. It was actually Stefan who introduced me to MPI Let's talk about the bridge stuff Henning hated the bridge and so I guess so any hanging wasn't my guy That one, but like he probably would be well capable of doing it But Henning was like the bridge needs to die bridge for needs to go away So I was like, no, no, I gotta keep And you know while MPI so for my own personal experience there was It was it was it was actually just finding a bit most of the developers won't if they don't want to work Most of the developers are quite focused on what to do. That's my experience And so they'll point you to the person who's most in touch with that particular part of the kernel or the operating system and that's certainly my experience with Stefan Sperling and Stefan Sperling I knew for years and I happened to be in Brussels and he happened to be in Brussels and we started having a few beers And I was talking to him about what I was doing and then that's how I got working with him on on the end shell project And and I haven't regretted it one bit since it's you know, he's been a massive Massive benefit to it. So as opposed to just but I know that the the resources of small companies are limited But that you know if you can say five or ten percent of the cost and a hundred percent of the benefit that works for me It's a good good cost-benefit analysis, you know And I suppose it just so that yeah, the various different BSD conferences are a great way of meeting people who are actively involved in the project, you know and There's no, you know, there's no Replacement for meeting someone face-to-face and saying can you work with this person? You know Most of you I could work with definitely I think that would be a one of the positive benefits with some risks associated with it But I like it because even like when I discussed this idea with he oh And I don't think he'd mind me kind of saying he was saying look It's important that you don't turn it into a job for these people either as in it has to be something They enjoy it's not like that they have to meet targets or but you know, you know It's it's There's a certain amount of passion that goes into what you've done with BSD and it's something to be extremely proud of and So I'm certainly I've benefited from that passion So and I don't want to kill that but it was more like where I can see it really useful is if you could Occupy up to 50% of the developers Working month With actually a paid work then chances are you can do whatever he wants to do or she wants to do For the other half of the month whether it's doing more open source or go on surfing You know if they're going surfing chances are they're pretty happy But like it's all from that point of view. I think it's it's a so there would be an element of trying to improve Increase the number of developers in And I'd like you know, there's going to be attrition there But like you can't grow a community unless you're having these newer people being tried out, you know, you know But yeah, I don't think it'll be for everyone But at least giving them the chance to contribute is is there is something more trying to do I think Yeah When you think about it the way I'd be looking at it is that it can be quite good for a single developer Who doesn't want to work a nine-to-five like let's be clear I'd probably be someone who is actually happy doing contracting and wants to so I think it would be from that point of view If it's an opportunity and the rate is reasonable. I think you know, it money does talk But if it is money and it's actually doing good quality code like at the end of the day Like with the relationship I had with like just could talk with MPI was he was saying I'll give you a diff That'll work with the Colonel. I have no idea if that'll actually get merged upstream You know, but he says I want you to be willing to let it be merged upstream in other words He didn't want to be a close source developer You're saying he'll put the time in and try and get a working and see if the community accepted He has no control over that and so that was the thing. Yeah Sorry. Yeah, so he was just Sorry for the fans at home. He was just asking how do we compete with the marketplace for you know Where you've got the bigger blue chip companies doing that and the answer I suppose is you just compete in that? People like if there's a job like look at jobs.ie or any of them. There's you know, we need a PHP developer. We need this The rate is X amount per day. It's a three month projects or something like that This will probably be more micro and there could be a scope for obviously having more How to put it it could also be just for people who want to make a few extra quid to you know Save for a house or something like that. I don't know. So it was bought. I think there's I think there will be Like where I'm seeing it is I think there's a lot of small companies while they may be struggling to break even They I think they can We're doing okay. I would say that And a lot of companies don't mind spending a small bit of money For a bigger game, you know, and that's I think that's been the if you if you can team up with others Okay, so So Okay, so Salvia was saying you know the access to our knowledge of open BSD or any of the BSD's as a service is Is is it is it's not as well known? Let's say and how would we get over that and I think it's just I suppose it's like You know, it's like what we do with undeadly or hacker news, you know Or LinkedIn God love us. Sorry. You know, but like the thing is that It's funny when I was talking about the bridge ports and stuff like that And I was asking for other people for help now. I didn't get it at the time I think we got one person saying that they were interested in it. I didn't get across the line But if you had an established clearinghouse where people were meeting to solve problems as in the customer of who has the problem and The developer who has the ability to provide a solution. I think I think it can work But I think it's certainly worth trying. I do think that it is It's not without its challenges and like, you know, you know, even the whole thing about disputes I think if everyone's fair, it'll be fine but, you know, you know It's a Subjective I suppose that thing but I think if you have people who are accomplished develop I think that at the first start I'd be saying if it was me and I was worried about my money Is that I'd be probably back in a developer who has a track record already, you know And being honest, the re-risking for me is that if there's 10 or 20 companies involved now It's only 5% of the cost So it's actually and you know, so there's there's benefits there and What's it, you know, so Similar projects do exist in a bigger scale like a lot of the ripe, you know, the network stuff Like the BGP like work the extensive work the Claudio Theo and a lot of people that don't know BGP was supported by a Network of companies or institutes that believed that it was worth pursuing and so as to try and take that Big concept and say can we make it more accessible and easier for people to do? Yeah, so So just to repeat what Mark Espion said there he was saying While he was obviously speaking from his experience from open BSD communities But he was saying what's the policy or what's the procedure for I suppose How does the communities work in terms of ingesting code and dealing with people dealing with new ideas funding all that type of stuff How does that? How does it apply across all of the BSD? So not just free be not just open BSD or free BSD or net BSD or dragonfly BSD any of the BSD's And I suppose the question is Like I suppose that's why I kind of brought it up here was to kind of ask for Like I know free BSD have a foundation that you know, and they do a lot with corporate You know sponsorship, which is good for letting in terms of Intel drivers and stuff like that and we see that And you know you see other companies like you know in fairness to new has sponsored an awful lot of work in the community as well That I've seen and benefited from so I appreciate that as well Sorry, so just Yeah, so and the ways I was hoping that's a really good question. I think Patrick was that hurt that question or will I repeat it? Okay, so what What Alexander was saying there he was just saying that you know, it's easy to hire a developer if If you kind of know where their background and their situation and whether they can commit fully or do they have another Full-time job and that's easy challenge. Like that's a problem Like you know like I've seen they're saying they're really good But you don't know if you can get 20 hours a week out of them or you know are 10 hours a week out of them And We don't want to be running people into the ground And I think that's one of the points that Theo made to me was don't don't burn out the guys Or you know, you know, and he didn't say it like that But I think that was one of his concerns. He said he didn't want to be like Where you know, he's emailing guys about ideas and are knackered because Tom has asked them to do something for You know, sorry knackered is it? Sorry tired sorry it's a term of the local term sorry, but but The other the other issue was that you know the overheads of actually employing someone just for one one particular change is quite hard and What it was Alex would then talk about was just asking like if there was a marketplace where said hey I'm interested in doing this development and be honest. That's what I was hoping for was that the be some sort of Where I was thinking in my wildest dreams was a website where you have a list of problems You know and people saying we'll we're willing to commit X amount to get this off the ground Or we've you know only 30% of the funds are committed that project So it's a nice until more people actually care about it enough And then the other thing was that you'd have developers who said here. Here's what I've done In the various different projects and I'm interested in I'm available for doing stuff if people are around So you'd be connected and particularly particularly unfortunately now in the tech sector where there have been a lot of layoffs You know where people are downsizing Because you know for whatever reason so I think there was probably an opportunity there to connect them with funds to make You know for their livelihood Yeah Yeah Like that was one of the that was a really good point So Alex was talking about we there's no guarantee that any of this funded work Actually gets committed to either any of the projects and and certainly that was the basis in which to be fair any of the developers That I've engaged with an open BSD They were the ones I was dealing with So from that example was literally like it was from absolutely clear He says I will deliver you a diff that works. It will working open BSD current or release and And it will be functional, you know, but I've no guarantee it'll get upstream But to say that also is because this feature I think made sense and particularly in the context of VMM and VMMD You know isolating hosts from each other. It was quite an attractive, you know, just fit it in But also in the course of the review, that's where I think it's important to contribute to the foundations themselves because in the course of the review while I'm paying for the code or You know, I'm not actually paying for the people who are actually reviewing the code And in the review of the code better ideas came so I got what I wanted I'm not what I asked I got wanted plus plus as opposed to What I asked her and so it was an incredibly good experience for me and and it worked out well and We got it. It was actually committed And and with some ways though It's also an opportunity if people really need a feature for Their own business a diff is you know our patches fine, you know, and And also it gives people an opportunity to reflect that when the patch has been running in production for a commercial operator for a few years Either the commercial operator might realize why the project does some on to do that in its in its In their tree or or not. So so I do I do think it's I think it's important to that the independence of the projects are maintained because You don't want to be stepping on toes and like it like as I said The statement there is not the most, you know salesy funding is not democratic But the idea is that if if we can tap more funding from people then they can Enhance the project in a way that otherwise wouldn't have been available to the projects You know, so it's a and I think the marketplace. That's why it's But it's even things like escrow employment laws. There's all these other questions, you know and then it's also like You know, you know a lot of these developers are dealing with super some of these problems won't be that simple So How do you, you know? How do you deal with the fairness of all is it being delivered or you know, is there a problem, you know But I think that's just I think it has to be a certain amount of trust and fair play on both sides of that one but like But any other like a order like a presager comments there Alex and appreciate your company's contribution to the projects so But if I may say look, I'm not a member of any of the projects So I don't I don't have a commit bit or like I'm a fan I have a user And as Theo said very politely to me in an interview. I don't like users and it says this admins. He got still users So I was trying to work out if I could get into his good graces. So I Know I'm effective. I can't unless I start committing stuff but writing code and So but one of the things Sorry I don't think any of the projects will ingest massive dips from people that they don't know I you know, I just can't see it happening. I think there'll be a certain amount of If there are people coming from outside which to help with development and solving problems, that's a great thing but I can't see that happening without them being chaperoned by someone senior Who actually knows and understands the inner workings of particularly if it's an effort-related like, you know it's Like for my experience was once you find the developer that you want to do and they have time which It's not necessarily guaranteed But if you have that if you've got the developer your time and you've the problem and then you can get money on the other side You just connect the two and it can happen You know and in fairness with the open Open BSD foundation and that's why I'd asked Theo and just from what was Just it was bored that he He happened to be at the Dublin hackathon and I was able to say I've been thinking about this What's the best way approaching it and I think the way the open BSD foundation is more for dealing with the operation of the open BSD project per se and not solving Tom's problem or making sure Tom's problem gets solved with You know with with with Alex or I'll have you so they don't involve themselves in that and it's more about the you know Keeping the hackathons going and keeping the development of the overall direction of the project And I'm going to guess that free BSD foundation does something similar and I know that they've you know They've a you know different model in terms of dev summits and stuff like that Although I've never attended So So Finding so I know the developer who who is doing the stuff and But but I don't know if he's Capable of working for me and I also have my my own processes I think it's even harder to to do it for people that are not that closely involved in the community and The open BSD foundation is not responsible for doing that because they are also volunteers They just want to have the project running and not doing feature management So I think what what we could do is is creating a marketplace like a web page where we say okay If you want you are freelancer and want to get money from from open from from BSD users Write your skills there write your favorite BSD system and we say okay Companies who want to have features make feature lists and then we match that somehow those. It's basically a Web page where we find us To exchange to give it a like a marketplace of ideas and a marketplace of funding opportunities for people who want to either improve their skills as a developer or Or or contribute to the BSD projects and actually get some Renumeration for doing so and of course when you do it commercially there's more risk Do you you're dealing with money and not just with talking but Companies who say we we want to spend money They they are used to to make financial risks and freelancers who say okay I want to take money from some customers are also used to that and when they deal with them on a one-to-one Or one-to-end basis it's their thing and then their risk and we don't have to to involve the rest of the community to that So I think a marketplace Where we show the the financial opportunities and the skills of the people Could be the thing but there still needs a volunteer who cares about that as usual And even like it's something like an escrow service So where obviously someone hundred taken work and they need to be paid Honest days work for honest days pay that's you know, that's part of the How much time do we have left? I'm just seeing 22 okay Okay top the hour okay grant so like it so like it so we can have something like or is thinking something like an escrow Esk type service where you know the companies put up the money the money is there. It's real so at least the developer has that and then The Roni is released on you know agreed milestones, you know, which you know a diff that compiles that works and delivers What it says is delivers, you know, that's being paid You know, but that would be an individual contract. I wouldn't say that we can make an organization that cares about that Yeah, and if if I suppose it was more like I suppose Do you think that this is something worth trying to kind of get off the ground or as well as that's the question We're asking people in the room I think if it's something which is a request coming directly from the community inside the community Even if it's a user like you for example, and you make like a direct contract with the developer Then you know, there are some issues as is Alexander said, but it's it's doable If he's someone coming from outside, then it's quite tough. I would say where I might see it is where Look Yeah, it's At the moment it'd be kind of like where I think it's you build it and they'll come like where people like to get involved so for me like Getting unknown parties to connect with unknown parties and that get a contract that works and cause that's merged upstream That's big ask, but I think if you're dealing with at least a couple of knowns You know it reduces risk considerably like for instance if if there was improvements for the package manager and open BST or something like that You know mark SP or you know or to make You know so you've got all the you know So if there was some stuff like that where you could fund that you know who at least one of the parties and then Like as mark was saying yesterday he has students who are he's trying to encourage it along and it's like so You know, I think that's where you have people who are in the communities who are part of universities as you were saying I think that is a remarkable opportunity to get more people involved where they're actually been trained by the university and Part of their training is actually committing or making good quality code for whichever BST Project, I think it's a benefit and then you know, you may end up having a career in it And the project still have the final word to if they accept the code for example in open BST We have some had some problems with some Google code students who had this summer project and after summer were gone And nobody was maintaining the code So that's also risk for the project, but we can deal with it by not integrating it Or by getting those people involved So that's also a chance for and for us when we say, okay, this guy is good But he's not just doing it for a Google summer of code, but he is doing it because he loves Unix and BSD and and coding and So if we have such a character, then we can all profit from that But for us, it's important that we have a man in long-term maintainer Yeah, I think it's not specific to Google summer of code students or anything like we get developers vanished all the time basically So yeah, you have some code. It looks to be good quality. So we integrate it That's why we have reviews so that we can make sure that somebody else would at least be able to maintain it more or less But sometimes people vanish like who's heard about the right photo recently. I don't know what are we going to do with this code? For instance, okay, well, we're almost out of time. Does anyone else up at the back want to Even just suggest any ideas or tell me I'm full of crap. It's just fine Or just give it to me. I promise I'll give it That's thanks for coming. Oh, yeah, I was just gonna suggest that, you know, maybe it would even be useful to have Even if it's a mailing list or just some way to reach out to people who, you know Have the context. I know you said conferences like this are the best way to to meet the people who can do the work But sometimes it's even hard in a place like this to find the right person and and link up so if there was a way to just reach out or possibly to You know have some Team who kind of can just direct the requests in the right direction to and link up people, you know, not necessarily Do the work but just help Connect people. Yeah, right I don't know. No, I don't think that's it's a it's a really important part because If you're a small company, you're not directly involved in the BSD development process or you're not on miscat, which Or sorry various different mailing lists. You might know who to talk to even so yeah, I think that's I think there's that connection point It's important. Thank you