[matplotlib-devel] Matplotlib and Numfocus Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement (FSA)

[Michael D. <md...@st...>]

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Matplotlib is a widely used, well regarded, and powerful visualization 
library that has dominated the Python visualization stack for over a 
decade. However, to maintain that position, matplotlib must continue to 
evolve. Complementary or alternative libraries are appearing at an 
increasing rate, including browser-based plotting and GPU acceleration. 
To maintain its leadership position for the next decade, Matplotlib must 
interface with these alternatives while simultaneously expanding its 
capabilities and becoming easier to use and learn.


Matplotlib’s large existing user base (greater than 50,000) means that 
new developments need to be carefully balanced with maintaining existing 
interfaces.  With the large user and code base comes a significant 
maintenance and user-support burden.  These responsibilities currently 
account for a majority of the core-developer time spent on matplotlib 
and has resulted in both the code base and community being in a 
healthier state than ever before. Even 6 years ago there was no 
automated testing to speak of and the number of contributors continues 
to soar on github. However, this effort is, for the most part, done on a 
volunteer basis in the nights and weekends of the core developers.  To 
go beyond this maintenance level—to make step-change improvements for 
the benefit of matplotlib’s users—will require funding for full-time 
developers. Inspired and encouraged by the example of IPython, we would 
like to begin the process of fundraising.


Managing funding on the needed scale is a complex and time-consuming 
process.  Thankfully, NumFOCUS, a 501(c)3 charity organisation 
co-founded by John Hunter, offers a fiscal sponsorship agreement to 
minimize the administrative and legal burden on open source projects. We 
would like to enlist NumFOCUS as our agents in all legal and financial 
matters, including banking, accepting donations as a non-profit, 
payroll, and access to legal counsel.  As part of the agreement, 
NumFOCUS would charge a percentage of all funds raised to cover their 
costs.  The full text of the agreement is attached.


To comply with the legal and accounting requirements of a non-profit, 
matplotlib needs to form an administrative body to interact with 
NumFOCUS and direct the disbursement of any funds.  The proposed initial 
members of the body, are myself (Mike Droettboom), Eric Firing, Phil 
Elson, and Thomas Caswell, with Thomas acting as the point of contact 
with NumFOCUS.


In practice, signing an FSA will have very little impact on the 
matplotlib project itself - it will still be BSD-licensed and 
community-driven as it has always been, and the only motivation for 
doing this is to give us an opportunity to apply for funding to do more 
work on matplotlib. We'd like to canvas the community's opinion on the 
matter, but to put a concrete timeline on the discussion, we would like 
to propose signing an FSA with NumFOCUS in 3 weeks (Feb 10th 2015) 
unless there is a major community discomfort with us doing so.


Cheers,
Michael Droettboom

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-- 
Michael Droettboom
Science Software Branch
Space Telescope Science Institute

http://www.droettboom.com