[HCoop-Discuss] On organizing people to get work done

[Adam Chlipala]

docelic at mire.hcoop.net wrote:
> I personally was one of the people who like the idea of HCoop due to being
> a non-profit and not charging more than absolutely needed.
> Some kind of a "limit" I've always had in mind when thinking about
> per-member due was $7.
>   

I think that is quite a reasonable target, even if we get a half-time 
paid staff member, if we grow membership enough. Just considering our 
current member base and the $2/mo. dues increase that follows your 
suggestion, we end up with $266/mo. "extra" to pay staff. From my 
experience being a graduate student in CS, normal pay for half-time 
research assistants is under $2000/mo.. (And that is for quite 
highly-skilled work compared to sysadmin'ing for "normal" 
architectures.) At $7/mo./member, we would only need 867 more members to 
close the gap to $2000; and we might be able to save money by finding a 
better physical hosting situation. It seems like a stretch to assume 
we'll get to that membership level in the next few years, but it's not 
at all out of the question, if we get a stable platform that overcomes 
the current most popular gripes. If we raise dues to $10 instead of $7, 
we only need 267 more members to fund a $2000/mo. part-time staff 
member, if other costs remain the same.

I can't see how we can get to that point without dues above $7 in the 
mean-time, though, through extra pledges or a higher fixed amount for 
each member.