[Kamailio-Users] project foundation

[Alex Balashov]

Daniel-Constantin Mierla wrote:

> On 08/12/08 20:47, Alex Balashov wrote:
>> Do you have a general sense of the general price range in which the 
>> dues for associate members will fall?
>>
> a quick operational expenses estimation for the first year brought up 
> the figure of ~3000Euro, that includes the expenses for creating the 
> foundation, two hosted servers (one main, one backup), domain names and 
> trademark registrations. The costs regarding TM registration expenses 
> (US&EU) are not yet very clear to me, maybe someone can shed some light 
> if he/she did it recently.
> 
> What will be extra will be used to pay seasonly some admin to keep the 
> servers up to date and secure, support events about project.
> 
> Based on above figures, the membership fees should be like:
> - 100Euro/year for individual members
> - 500Euro/year for companies

That's high.  It's actually a rather bad figure, psychologically, in the 
sense that it is too high for some very small companies (some of the 
ones most enthusiastic about the use of OpenSER) to be able to bear 
(believe me, in the up-and-down, feast-or-famine that is the one or 
two-man show consulting business, $62 USD/mo, which is what EU500/year 
works out to, is a serious expense to be carefully controlled).  And for 
more established to mid-size companies, while easily affordable, it is 
not a sum they would deem worthwhile to pay to be a member of some 
foundation of something that is fundamentally free.  They'd much rather 
just leave it to everyone else to support it.  It's a lot like the 
prisoner's dilemma.

Personally, I think you should make it EU25/year for individuals and 
EU100/year for companies.  You'll get a lot more contributing members 
that way, since that is an amount that, from a psychological 
perspective, many many more people would be willing to pony up. 
("$12/mo?  Sure, whatever.")

You should also make sure that you allow the option of paying monthly 
instead of collecting the dues up-front.  This gets you a recurring - if 
amortised - income stream that you can count on more, and it further 
greatly increases the amount of people willing to pay, because 
$10-$20/mo has a lot less psychological impact than $150, "RIGHT NOW!"

I cannot speak for the European dimension of the community, but I can 
say that Americans, at least, are generally very reluctant to part with 
nontrivial sums of money, even for things that they theoretically 
support and wholeheartedly endorse conceptually.  It is best to find 
ways to diffuse the issue by making the amounts small but steady, rather 
than large and thought-provoking.

-- Alex

-- 
Alex Balashov
Evariste Systems
Web    : http://www.evaristesys.com/
Tel    : (+1) (678) 954-0670
Direct : (+1) (678) 954-0671
Mobile : (+1) (706) 338-8599