@lorenzulrich, I like your move. Not only the money that you sponsor but also the call to other agencies to consider that, too.
We - interezzo ag - sponsored some bugfixes and features that we needed for current projects in the last weeks/months. Usually we do it like this:
- When a feature or bugfix is needed, we talk to core team members (or other core-near people) about that and ask for an estimation.
- We ask our customer for a budget based on that estimation. Depending on the case we - as an agency - sponsor a part ourselves, especially when we see benefits for future/other projects.
- The feature/bugfix gets done/fixed.
As inspiration for others who might want to go the same ways some thoughts:
- Finding a core-developer is most of the time easy via slack-channels. Once you are in contact with some your network grows and it gets even easier to find the right specialist for the job.
- Of course you need to be able to give some reasonable timeframe to do stuff.
- I was not sure how our customers would react to funding-questions but I was surprised. Not only we got a budget most of the time, but it also showcased that our agency has the right network in place to get some outsourced professionals to help. Your own customer might remember yourself as someone who has good connections to the core team which makes you a more valuable service provider for your customer.
I am quite sure our feature-related approach will continue in the upcoming projects as this concept works really well for us. If not, I will initiate also some general sponsoring in the future (additional to the badges and the event-sponsoring that we always do).
There is so much private time invested by the core team (and other constributors). Everybody who earns money by building websites with Neos/Flow should consider to also contribute something (code/money/time). As in many open source projects, the ratio of takers and givers is not fair. So lets not get tired of motivating more takers to become also givers.
