Raising money to make TYPO3 rock!

By: Peter Pröll

TYPO3 is Open Source and free software. Even though it needs money to make TYPO3 rock! Read the news from the latest "Steering-Member-and-Board-Conference" (CoS-CoB) in Luebeck last week.

Stormy weather

It's been a great time in this wonderful and beautiful city of Luebeck last week. First we had an open Q&A session (there will be news on that later). After that we had a 1 1/2 day Combined Steering Committee and Board meeting - the CoS-CoB. But we just like to call it Boskoop (like the apple variety) as most of us (that is Jürgen and me) cannot memorize this abbreviation :-).

On Saturday I joined the TYPO3 goes Kieler Woche event which has been a huge success! More people than last year, more sun, more wind, more waves, more fun (on board and later on in the Bavarian pavilion) and more anticipation for T3SAIL later this year in September. And you can tell for sure: That day I met some of the bravest TYPO3 community members! Thanks for sharing the spirit.

Anyway - on this event I heard someone saying "ask the association - if anyone has money it's them".  And that brings us back to work: I'd be really happy if I could say "yes, that's right". But the contrary is right: The days before we had some big discussions on several issues that are in need of money. It wasn't a discussion on if we would like to give the money to the projects but where to get the money from.

Currently we are talking of 4-5 projects we love to finance. Amongst others it is the T3UxW - a project to move user experience and backend usability to the top. Actually there is no money left from the current budget plan and so the discussion was, how and where we can raise money and we were forced to give priorities to the projects.

Some money will be taken from the Association's funds but still that is not enough. Kian is doing well in getting the professional fund raising started but we do not know yet how successful this will be. Good luck that preparations for the T3CON09 are doing really well and we already have a huge growth in sponsorships. Hopefully the sale of tickets will be successful, too. Thanks Jürgen and the whole T3CON-team for the efforts!

In this discussion an other idea came up: to put Google adwords to the typo3.org front page just on the right side (outside the main layout). There where some voices in the conference voting for this idea and some against it. Finally we agreed to give it a try for two months and see what amount will be raised by this measure. There will be a poll connected to the adwords to ask you for your opinion.

Last but not least we would like to have your feedback which you can give right here as a comment to this blog post! What do you think?

Your feedback is wanted: Boarding, please!
Peter

PS: If you are interested in the numbers of the budget, association members get them via the members' mailing list. And if you are not member by now: think of supporting your favorite CMS project now ;-).