Partners as Maintainers - Proposals

Goals

This document aims to list the proposals that have been brought up so far, both in the responses document and during the 2024-12-13 meeting. If you see any proposal missing, don’t hesitate!

The goal is to build a list to base our discussions on for the next meeting, and to eventually vote to decide which one to adopt. To ensure there is no penalty to having multiple proposals that are similar, we would use ranked voting, like for the TOC elections.

To allow for slight variations as well as mix&matching without multiplying the number of proposals, they are broken down in several parts, which would be voted on individually.

Part 1 - Level of commitment

This is to decide how to set a number or criteria for the commitment being made. Note that this is only to set the level, not how this is contributed: a criteria could be set using $ amounts but contributed as time, or the other way around, depending on the following question.

1-1) Partners commit to contribute core contributor time (which excludes work funded by Axim) at a level equal to:

5%
10%
15%
20%
None of the other options. Instead, use a tiering system similar to conferences, with gold/silver/bronze members. Each company would be assigned to a tier based on the absolute number of CC employees and contributions.
None of the other options. Instead, set areas of ownership, which is another way to build long-lasting expertise in the community. (eg. mobile, i18n, xblocks, MFEs, Tutor and others)

1-2) If the criteria is a %, it is based on:

the annual income derived from Open edX projects
the workforce hours which is affected to Open edX projects

Part 2 - How it is contributed

This is to decide the ways this level of commitment is actually contributed:

As core contributor & maintainer time, or as a financial donation toward the project’s maintenance
As a financial donation toward the project’s maintenance
As core contributor & maintainer time
As a fixed number of pull requests, bug fixes, or feature enhancements annually

Part 3 - Maintenance

To decide how to ensure that some of the contributed time or money contributes to maintenance.

If a partner contributes core contributor time to the project, rather than donating toward the project maintenance, it also commits to maintain on the openedx github organization:

At least one repository for each $100K of annual revenue derived from Open edX projects. Large or complex repositories could count as multiple repositories (decided by Axim).
At least one repository for each core contributor from the partner. Large or complex repositories could count as multiple repositories (decided by Axim).
At least one repository for each 10h/month contributed as part of the partner commitments. Large or complex repositories could count as multiple repositories (decided by Axim).

Part 4 - Benefits of the partner program

One of the main benefits of the partner program is to ensure that our businesses can rely on a well-supported and maintained project.

4-1) Additionally, being a partner should also bring the following benefits: (also ranked voting - we would focus on or implement the first few or half?)

Ability to advertise being an “Open edX Partner” to clients and publicly
Advertised as an Open edX Partner on the Open edX website
Leads forwarded from the requests sent on the Open edX website, or when talking with stakeholders from different organizations
Transparency report for lead distribution, sharing aggregated numbers of leads allocated per region or vendor.
Leads allocated with an area-specific system, ensuring contributors in various regions receive equitable opportunities (defined transparently)
Leads allocated by categories, such as pricing structure, company size, market size, or geographic focus (defined transparently)
Renewed focus on the referral program to increase conversion rates and address market-specific challenges, such as pricing or regional demand disparities.
Being consulted on decisions that affect the partners, before they are taken, by convening the present assembly of Open edX partners (and/or a shared mailing-list, depending on the importance of the decision).
Priority access to beta features, roadmap discussions, or technical support to give them a competitive edge in their service offerings
Priority access to market insights aggregated and managed by Axim, for example estimations of the total size of the OE market per year, split by hosting, development services, instructional design services, etc.
Opportunities to join collaborative marketing campaigns and being included in Open edX's global outreach efforts, to help gain visibility and leads
Exclusive training resources for their teams, helping them stay up-to-date with Open edX features and best practices.
More visibility into Axim’s partnerships with other organizations, to encourage more companies to get involved and work together
Provide more transparency regarding decisions being taken internally at Axim, by holding all discussions related to Open edX publicly, or at least open to Open edX partners.
A plan to remove most of the edX-specific code and especially reduce the MFE maintenance burden to make the platform economical to maintain
To foster an ecosystem of smaller companies, their contributions would be highlighted in the official Open edX marketing channels, including the blog, YouTube channel, etc.

4-2) Should partners contributing above the baseline (e.g., 15% or 20%) qualify for additional benefits? (yes/no answer)

4-3) If partners contributing above the baseline were to qualify for additional benefits, what should those benefits be? (ranked voting)

Priority access to beta features or roadmap discussions
Increased visibility on the Open edX website or marketing materials
Additional recognition in the community
Access to large deal-sized customer contracts

Part 5 - Marketing

For the Open edX product and community to thrive, we have to build visibility on the market for Open edX platform. It’s important for growing, building credibility and ensuring that Open edX platform remains competitive. There is no way to do it without partners, so we would establish a consistent amount of promotion-related activities. (The following could be yes/no votes:)

Requiring each provider to contribute X case studies per year to openedx.org
Publishing X articles or blog posts on topics approved by the Marketing Working Group
Adding X testimonials from clients to open.edx.org
Approving putting the logo of X clients to open.edx.org website

To determine the amount of activities, the criteria used would be (ranked voting:)

At least 20% of the amount of acquired clients. For example, if the company has acquired 10 clients, they have to put 2 - 5 case studies and testimonials about Open edX platform to Open edX website.
A fixed amount - at least one of each (X = 1).

For the requirements that require client approval, like logos or testimonials, an exception is granted if the clients refuse - but the other items would remain required, at least on an anonymous basis for the client.

Part 6 - Commitment Mechanism

With whatever agreement we come to with effort level and reporting, I think it is fair to tie benefits to that reporting. In other words, the commitment from Axim is dependent on the commitment from Partners. If a partner doesn’t meet their contributions (maintenance, reporting, marketing…), then Axim starts pulling benefits. Perhaps a progression system like this:

First Warning: Private Warning
Second Warning: Privately stopping referrals to that partner
Third Warning: Public removal from partner list and benefits.

This progression would be “reset” once the partner comes into good standing.