Re: Q to all candidates: future of Debian finances
On Thu, Apr 03, 2025 at 01:17:48PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Quoting Andreas' reply in an earlier thread:
>
> On 18/03/25 at 16:14 +0100, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > Understanding Debian's financial situation is essential for the DPL, as
> > one of the DPL's responsibilities is making decisions on funding
> > requests. However, it is important to emphasize that the actual
> > financial management-including tracking income, expenses, and
> > reporting-is handled by the treasurers. Their work ensures that Debian's
> > finances are well managed and accounted for, and the DPL relies on their
> > expertise to make informed decisions.
> >◃
> > For a long time, financial decision-making was relatively
> > straightforward. In his Bits from the DPL talk, Neil once mentioned at
> > DebConf15 that he approved every single funding request he received, and
> > Debian's financial reserves still grew during his term. Unfortunately,
> > these simpler times seem to be over, and the need for careful financial
> > planning has increased. I'd love to be in Neil's shoes, and I hope that
> > future DPLs will see those times return.
>
>
> Do you see this as a problem? What solutions do you envision, and what
> will be your strategy as DPL when dealing with finances? For example,
> identify where costs can be reduced? Instead, increase revenue (how?)?
> Both?
>
> Also, why do you think we aren't anymore in the comfortable situation we
> were in ten years ago?
It seems we're spending a significant amount more than we have donations
on a yearly basis, leading at least the SPI assets to shrink by almost
100k per year and hence running dry in 2-3 years if it continues (
especially if we had 430k at the end of 2024, and now 300k as previously
reported; and we had 700k a couple years ago).
I think this was because there was a larger donation year a couple
years ago; rather than just low spending, but I don't quite recall
the details.
I think it would be optimal if we had a buffer that accounts for
2 years of expenses, and have expenses that match the regular
donations.
A large part of that would be to have regular donors, I suppose,
rather than one-off donors.
--
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