Financing for Ubuntu Touch development, via tokens
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Hello, I am a community outsider, although I had followed Ubuntu touch when it was first released.
Going straight to the point, how are you doing with financing? Do you have enough funds for development or do you find yourself limited?
I work in blockchain world and I think it is a good opportunity for Ubuntu Touch to get financed the development there, via an ICO or similar techniques. Have you already discussed opportunities alike? I have not found any forum thread on that topic.
My question comes from the constant need for funds from opensource projects, call it Ubuntu Desktop or Mozilla etc.
And I think open source software has not ever lived a better time to get financed in the markets and funds should not be a limitation. Nowadays an ICO may raise hundreds of millions (for outstanding projects).My interest here is helping an alternative to the duopoly.
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@pipdickens
note: probably I should comment that I got 110k USD grant from blockchain world for my company - private project.
I develop a product there -
@pipdickens said in Financing for Ubuntu Touch development, via tokens:
My interest here is helping an alternative to the duopoly.
If your interest is in helping out, why do you not do the investing and donate the proceeds to the project? In some jurisdictions these donations are tax deductible.
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@arubislander I donate to open source yes, Mozilla and Canonical specifically and here I have to get to know better what is going on.
There is a project on ethereum, or better said ethereum related, willing to create a mobile OS.
I just wanted to discuss with you first if you need money, or maybe your capacity of production is limited somewhere else and not with the money. Sometimes money is not the only limitation, talent acquisitions, legal etc.
Also any investment proceeds I could donate would be far lesser from 500 millions which an Ubuntu Touch ICO could get.
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The UBports Foundation, as a legfal body under EU and German law, cannot do any action that would cause troubles with tax authorities or our bank. I am afraid the only donations we can receive are the ones via our bank account and Paypal / Liberapay etc. though this is already an edge case.
Remember a foundation is not a startup, company, venture whatsoever that can take risks. Our obligation is to conserve our wealth and slowly aggregate more money from donators. Its not "investment capital" that we can spend for anything or invest in anything shady. So thanks for your offer, but it wont work for us.
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The tokens could have a function in the future such as early access to new apps or new OS functionalities.
Or voting rights to decide which phones will be supported in the future.I could elaborate further on this if you are curious.
I willing to donate more buying tokens in an ICO than sending the money directly. By orders of magnitude.
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@flohack I understand, my startup is based actually in Germany. And from there you can just sell tokens to qualified investors and not to the open market. But you could do the ICO from somewhere else and let the foundation to manage somehow the funds or distribution.
Also is possible that you could just put some of the tokens on the open market and pay development grants with the rest of the tokens so teams will be able to go to the market and swap them for money an pay expenses. You would not be directly getting money out of it.
And being a foundation I find it even easier than being a private company.
There is always a complex thinking behind this funding but Europe is regulating, not prohibiting crypto.
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@pipdickens It would seem to me that branchings out into this space, even if it were legally feasible, and compatible with the goals of the Foundation (which it is not), would distract from the main goal of the Foundation.
Again, it would be much better if some other entity or knowledgeable person, (why not you?) Would set this up under their own name and donate to the project as they saw fit.
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@arubislander I am not saying to deviate from main purpose. It would be something parallel, like enabling the tokens to be used to decide on future proposals (DAO tokens) which could be distributed first to those who have been long time contributors in the community etc.
It is not necessary major changes to what ever are your nearest goals.
Tokens achieve top value when they have a community behind, most of projects need to create community while Ubuntu Touch already has one.And also when the projects comes from within the community.
I could help with an ICO definitely. If the community estimates it appropriate and someone from UBports wants to get to know me personally and I can help.
There is la lot of money funding open source (which basically is what a blockchain is), you could take it and speed up in development. I check once how much Canocical gets per year in donations and I can tell you that an adequate ICO should get x2 or x3 and also we have to understand that a foundation keeps tokens and distribute them later to development teams. Also this does not mean to close any future streams of income from donations, these are compatible.
Web3 is about to finance things like what you already have built here. And top dollar not government's grants.
Note for clarification: you do not sell the tokens to "investors" you sell them to future users
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@pipdickens further comments: once th e community has discussed where could their tokens being deployed, the community could go to the blockchain foundation apply for a grant and get the whole process for ICO preparation financed.
Lets say USD 200k to 500kSo not asking for yourself to sacrifice time and work for the purpose.
The plan would be: you decide to go for this kinds of financing, you decide on which blockchain makes sense the token deployment, you apply for a financing from that blockchain to prepare the ICO, later once you have a well thought ICO (the tokens economic makes sense), always with end users as main target, you get USD 500 million, also you keep some tokens to distribute later on in development grants etc.
I would not be here if I do not think Ubuntu Touch has a lot of potential.
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@pipdickens I would also suggest that it would be best that any offer or further info be put in a more formal way than an open community forum. Though from what @Flohack has already said the Foundations legal obligations probably rule it out. Contact details are on the website https://ubports.com/
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@pipdickens said in Financing for Ubuntu Touch development, via tokens:
The tokens could have a function in the future such as early access to new apps or new OS functionalities.
Or voting rights to decide which phones will be supported in the future.Wow, don't take it for you or like an attack, but... What a terrible idea !
I HATE all kind of paywall, even if the wall is non permanent.What i think is if someone wants UT to live, he will donate, and will only take a good and healthy community made mobile OS as a reward.
If he wants more, he can go buy a UBP fundation tee-shirt or mug.
As for voting for the next ported phone, why only those who have enough money to buy one token, should have the righ to vote ?
It only reminds me when, in my country, only rich white males had the right to do so...
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@pipdickens if you want to donate your crypto, dogcoins or chucky cheese tokens, you can turn into a currency that a bank can recognize and do donations. Legal and real is what gears the foundation.
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Yeah as already said, no ICO, no tokens. We will not do this.
If you think Ubuntu Touch is cool and should be supported, either contribute code or transfer some € into our bank account
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And on that note ....... Locked
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