> What exactly do you think is stopping such contributions?
2/5 foundation board members are from New Vector. At least another 2/5 foundation board members have strong personal ties with New Vector. 7/8 spec team members are from New Vector.
In other words: Nothing at the Matrix Foundation happens without consent from New Vector. If New Vector does not like a competitor, they can block them from participating in the standard (making new features of them standards non-compliant) and then block them from using the Matrix brand or claiming to be Matrix compatible. As a company, you'd be stupid to build your business around being a competitor to New Vector if they can easily throw you out.
That was the whole purpose of the foundation: to manage the spec and the brand independent of New Vector, so that others can contribute.
> I'm not following. How does the foundation having money reduce this risk?
It's much easier to do anything with money. If new structures need to be created in the foundation after a collapse of New Vector, it is way easier to do so if you have money.
> It would change things if they were bringing in millions, but when the community patreon is not even bringing in enough to hire a full time minimum wage employee in California, much less a developer, accountant, or lawyer, documenting the expenditure of a few pennies is pretty low on my priority list.
As I wrote in the linked thread, their total assets exceeded a million dollars end of 2021. That should be enough for a full-time hire with competitive compensation for a few years, especially if that hire is not in California (why the hack hire in California when you don't need to?). Also, even small amounts of money can be very attractive to open source contributors, they're already doing it without any compensation, but just giving them a thousand bucks a month will make them more likely to continue contributing in their spare time. You don't need it to be a full time hire to be effective.
2/5 foundation board members are from New Vector. At least another 2/5 foundation board members have strong personal ties with New Vector. 7/8 spec team members are from New Vector. In other words: Nothing at the Matrix Foundation happens without consent from New Vector. If New Vector does not like a competitor, they can block them from participating in the standard (making new features of them standards non-compliant) and then block them from using the Matrix brand or claiming to be Matrix compatible. As a company, you'd be stupid to build your business around being a competitor to New Vector if they can easily throw you out.
That was the whole purpose of the foundation: to manage the spec and the brand independent of New Vector, so that others can contribute.
> I'm not following. How does the foundation having money reduce this risk?
It's much easier to do anything with money. If new structures need to be created in the foundation after a collapse of New Vector, it is way easier to do so if you have money.
> It would change things if they were bringing in millions, but when the community patreon is not even bringing in enough to hire a full time minimum wage employee in California, much less a developer, accountant, or lawyer, documenting the expenditure of a few pennies is pretty low on my priority list.
As I wrote in the linked thread, their total assets exceeded a million dollars end of 2021. That should be enough for a full-time hire with competitive compensation for a few years, especially if that hire is not in California (why the hack hire in California when you don't need to?). Also, even small amounts of money can be very attractive to open source contributors, they're already doing it without any compensation, but just giving them a thousand bucks a month will make them more likely to continue contributing in their spare time. You don't need it to be a full time hire to be effective.