[didibus]

The interesting part is:

> I was soon shocked to learn that the Foundation spent nearly $800,000 last year. $0 of that went to Processing 4. [...] This year, the proposed Foundation budget is around $1.2 million. But for Processing, there is budget for just two people: one developer, one community lead.

Basically he feels like the donation money should go towards further development of Processing itself, but the foundation seems to be spending it on other stuff, and not on continuing or accelerating the development of Processing itself.

[throwoutway]

To be frank, the donors likely think their donor money should go towards further development of Processing itself. That's why they're donating to THAT foundation

[thrown37291]

Not really. Processing Foundation today is much wider than just the Processing software. A lot of people interact with Processing Foundation through workshops, teaching and p5 without ever touching the original Processing software.

[didibus]

My read is that no money went to the development of P5 as well. I think he refers to Processing as all of it's versions, so the Java and JavaScript based variants. But maybe that needs some clarification from him.

[acomjean]

I was a board member at a small arts non-profit. Honestly one of the things we really struggled with was how to handle volunteers when we were paying some people.

We decided to go all volunteer, as it seemed like it would make it easier to ask members to help out. (avoids the why are they getting paid and not us..?).

But with a very small anual budget (very low 5 figures) per year, most of which was from member fees, and almost all of which we spent on our public and free event. paying people wasn't an issue, we just couldn't.

With the spike in donations the foundation got, it becomes way more difficult to manage. Especially since it was a volunteer effort for the most part before 2021. I see some obvious overhead (maintaining p5.js online editor/ toolkit. etc..) but I also see echos of the "why is this valuable and worth paying for but not that"...

[didibus]

I can see that for some non-profit with more nebulous goals, but as a user of Processing, I'd assume all the foundation does is just further development, maintainance, bug fixes, and like managing the bug reports, the announcements on the website, and all that.

And maybe some work to market the foundation itself and try to increase the donations to it.

So really my expectations would be that it takes the money, and hires people to expand Processing, P5js, and the editor with new features, fix bugs, and maybe branch it out to new platforms. And it would maybe hire some people to manage the community issues.

And then the foundation members could discuss amongst themselves about what features are most important, if the editor needs more work this year, or if P5js needs more, or if they want to invest in a port to Rust, or whatever.

But it seems that there's a lot more money going towards things like outreach, grants to artists, events, workshops, etc.

I feel it goes against what I'd expect as a potential donor. And I feel it's also against what Ben Fey expects of the foundation.

He said himself:

> the project was always a 50-50 split between internal (software development) and external (the community, the documentation, examples, etc). The Foundation has lost all sense of balance

Implying that Software Development has almost spotted completely, and it's now all things around community building.

[whywhywhywhy]

>A lot of people interact with Processing Foundation through workshops, teaching

This work touches probably less than 1% what P5 and Processing do yet takes up the majority of the budget seemingly.

[thrown37291]

p5js is one of the most popular toolkits today for teaching creative coding and is used across schools and universities all over the world, so education and community outreach has become a huge part of the ecosystem. “Processing” as a global and worldwide community would not exist today if the only focus of the budget was on the original Java software.

[whywhywhywhy]

P5 is what I mostly use. How much of the budget did P5 get, how many developers are there?

My argument is for spending money on making software that affects millions not spending it mostly on fellowships that affect 12 people or workshops and talks that affect 40.

[15457345234]

> p5js is one of the most popular toolkits today for teaching creative coding

How much of the budget was p5js support/development assigned, how many developers are currently working on it, how many man/hours of development have gone into it over the past two years?

[lelanthran]

Anyone knows what the "other stuff" is?

[Propelloni]

From the main page of [1]

> Every year, we support and sponsor programs that nurture diverse communities and their projects. Our programs include:

* A Fellowship and Teaching Fellowship Program that funds exploratory, creative, and technical research

* An Advocacy Program that partners with organizations for projects

* Public events that provide platforms for collaboration between our contributors, such as panels and talks that spread the word about the need for equity in these fields

* Summer programs to support emerging coders throughout the world

[1] https://processingfoundation.org/

EDITed: linebreaks

[LunaSea]

The usual racket

[cbhl]

I'm under the impression that a 501c3 _can't_ spend its money on developers working on FOSS while being 100% tax deductible because of the US tax code; makes one wonder whether it would be worthwhile to lobby/organize to get that changed.

[15457345234]

Can you elaborate as to how you arrived at that conclusion?

[john-radio]

Naively, because it might help more pro-social and FOSS software get made?

[15457345234]

Thats... what? Is that a reply to my comment or just markov chaining?

[15457345234]

From: https://processingfoundation.org/

"We invite you to meditate on digital fragmentation and infrastructure that lays its foundation through the global white capitalist, colonialist, and imperialist framework we live in today through our Land and Digital Acknowledgements."

tl;dr: divisive nonsense

[fleshdaddy]

Yeah it’s really bizarre. It reminds me of times when I’ve gone to a charities website and things start getting weird and eventually I realize it’s run by some religious cult. Sucks though, seems like at a certain point you should just be honest that you are more interested in social issues so that people who want to support the actual development of processing know your foundation isn’t the way to do so.

[boppo1]

>should just be honest that you are more interested in social issues so that people who want to support the actual development of processing know your foundation isn’t the way to do so.

That's a feature, not a bug.

[15457345234]

> at a certain point you should just be honest

Yeah but then nobody will give you $10M in crypto

[fleshdaddy]

I don’t know tbh I’d assume those people donate because they made some money off of the work done on processing and want to give some back to keep development going. I’d think if you wanted to donate to the stuff they’re on about you’d find a non profit specifically for that purpose. I’m sure there are plenty and they’re probably better at it than a software foundation haha.

[15457345234]

Yeah, on further examination it looks like a lot of NFT artists created work using processing and have kicked it back, which explains why the donations were so crypto-heavy. It was giving odd vibes for a bit but it seems cool.

[tonyg]

It's right there on the homepage. What more do you want?

[wellthisisgreat]

I read the whole thing and Jesus Christ this is atrocious. Can’t imagine what it feels like to found a framework that became a driving force behind “creative coding” and watch it taken over by indoctrinated zealots who don’t care about the craft and the art of programming, and waste resources on social posturing.

[sterlingcrispin]

Ironically, not paying the producers and maintainers of the code is classic capitalism.

[millzlane]

It reads like it was written by a person who does not seek to divide.

[mvelbaum]

Sounds like commie gobbledygook to me.

[xmcqdpt2]

This comment has strong 1960s vibes.

[papandada]

It's likely invoking Norm MacDonald (who used this phrase humorously when Sara Silverman was explaining what a "comedy collective" was)

[indy]

It's a reference to Norm Macdonald

[mrbonner]

I think DEI initiatives.