Comments on: Mozilla’s Community “Loaner” Program: A New Twist on the Community Giving Program http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/ reasonable obsession Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:10:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Seth http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/#comment-76279 Seth Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:55:35 +0000 http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/#comment-76279 Thanks Ken and Gerv for the comments and questions. To Gerv's points regarding cost savings: You mention tracking who has what, administration, and making sure it is all OK after the loan. I think those cost are pretty minimal. I've been doing that already since the beginning of the program, so I think the present system we have will take care of that. Shipping costs: we'll start by shipping from a local purchaser to the first round of participants. Ongoing shipping costs may be a concern, but if it adds a relatively small percentage to the total costs, but is offset by not purchasing another piece of hardware (or whatever resource), then I think it is a fine tradeoff. Depreciation: Is this purely an accounting question? Or are you concerned that the hardware will degrade to unusable in the 1 or 2 years? There is a sample of contributors who I have in mind who have been using their hardware for quite a while, in some cases as long as 5-10 years. I wouldn't want an accounting technique that's used to reduce taxable income that is paid by companies to get in the way of a leveraged idea like this. The big point is this: For over one year, we have been sending out resources to key contributors. But, we have been trying to find people who are not only contributing, but have been around the project for quite some time. This new approach allows us to experiment by loaning hardware to someone who is doing great work, but may have been "around Mozilla" for, say, 6 or 9 months. Will that person stick around forever? Who knows, but it doesn't mean we can't try to make his or her lives easier by giving them some support. The loan program allows us to find individuals working on great, high impact projects, ask them to write a proposed set of deliverables, loan them some resources, and then track their progress at the end of the term. As I mentioned above, if after the proposed loan, the individual has done such critical work that it is essential for that person to keep the resource, then by all means, we'll let them have the machine. But, if after the short period, that person has accomplished what was hoped for, but does not have the time to continue working on it, or is moving on to something new, then we'll pay the cost for shipping to retrieve whatever was given and try to give it to someone else to use. Thanks Ken and Gerv for the comments and questions.

To Gerv’s points regarding cost savings: You mention tracking who has what, administration, and making sure it is all OK after the loan. I think those cost are pretty minimal. I’ve been doing that already since the beginning of the program, so I think the present system we have will take care of that.

Shipping costs: we’ll start by shipping from a local purchaser to the first round of participants. Ongoing shipping costs may be a concern, but if it adds a relatively small percentage to the total costs, but is offset by not purchasing another piece of hardware (or whatever resource), then I think it is a fine tradeoff.

Depreciation: Is this purely an accounting question? Or are you concerned that the hardware will degrade to unusable in the 1 or 2 years? There is a sample of contributors who I have in mind who have been using their hardware for quite a while, in some cases as long as 5-10 years. I wouldn’t want an accounting technique that’s used to reduce taxable income that is paid by companies to get in the way of a leveraged idea like this.

The big point is this: For over one year, we have been sending out resources to key contributors. But, we have been trying to find people who are not only contributing, but have been around the project for quite some time. This new approach allows us to experiment by loaning hardware to someone who is doing great work, but may have been “around Mozilla” for, say, 6 or 9 months. Will that person stick around forever? Who knows, but it doesn’t mean we can’t try to make his or her lives easier by giving them some support.

The loan program allows us to find individuals working on great, high impact projects, ask them to write a proposed set of deliverables, loan them some resources, and then track their progress at the end of the term. As I mentioned above, if after the proposed loan, the individual has done such critical work that it is essential for that person to keep the resource, then by all means, we’ll let them have the machine. But, if after the short period, that person has accomplished what was hoped for, but does not have the time to continue working on it, or is moving on to something new, then we’ll pay the cost for shipping to retrieve whatever was given and try to give it to someone else to use.

]]> By: Ken Saunders http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/#comment-75276 Ken Saunders Sat, 08 Dec 2007 03:21:08 +0000 http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/#comment-75276 Hi Seth, Gerv has some good points that I await seeing your response to, but I see all of the great possibilities of this program. I am interested in applying for the program both as a case study and for practical purposes that could help to promote the Access Firefox project. Hi Seth,
Gerv has some good points that I await seeing your response to, but I see all of the great possibilities of this program.
I am interested in applying for the program both as a case study and for practical purposes that could help to promote the Access Firefox project.

]]> By: Gerv http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/#comment-75028 Gerv Fri, 07 Dec 2007 15:34:49 +0000 http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/#comment-75028 Does this actually end up saving money? It seems to me that, for items worth less than $1000 or so, the cost of shipping from the storage facility, tracking who has what, administration, depreciation, shipping it back at the end of the loan period, checking it's still all in working order before shipping it to the next guy and so on, would end up as being about the same as if you just sent the guy the money and told him to go to Best Buy and keep the result. To put it another way: how much extra leverage does this actually give you over giving away the resources? Does this actually end up saving money? It seems to me that, for items worth less than $1000 or so, the cost of shipping from the storage facility, tracking who has what, administration, depreciation, shipping it back at the end of the loan period, checking it’s still all in working order before shipping it to the next guy and so on, would end up as being about the same as if you just sent the guy the money and told him to go to Best Buy and keep the result.

To put it another way: how much extra leverage does this actually give you over giving away the resources?

]]> By: Kommissar http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/#comment-74099 Kommissar Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:08:49 +0000 http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/2007/12/04/mozillas-community-loaner-program-a-new-twist-on-the-community-giving-program/#comment-74099 Your feed links for posts and comments are broken. They need a ':' after the 'http'. Your feed links for posts and comments are broken. They need a ‘:’ after the ‘http’.

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