How has robur financially been doing since 2018?
+Since the beginning, robur has been working on MirageOS unikernels and getting +them deployed. Due to our experience in hierarchical companies, we wanted to +create something different - a workplace without bosses and management. Instead, +we are a collective where everybody has a say on what we do, and who gets how +much money at the end of the month. This means nobody has to write report and +meet any goals - there's no KPI involved. We strive to be a bunch of people +working together nicely and projects that we own and want to bring forward. If +we discover lack of funding, we reach out to (potential) customers to fill our +cash register. Or reach out to people to donate money.
+Since our mission is fulfilling and already complex - organising ourselves in a +hierarchy-free environment, including the payment, and work on software in a +niche market - we decided from the early days that bookeeping and invoicing +should not be part of our collective. Especially since we want to be free in +what kind of funding we accept - donations, commercial contracts, public +funding. In the books, robur is part of the non-profit company +Änderwerk in Germany - and friends of ours run that +company. They get a cut on each income we generate.
+To be inclusive and enable everyone to participate in decisions, we are 100% +transparent in our books - every collective member has access to the financial +spreadsheets, contracts, etc. We use a needs-based payment model, so we talk +about the needs everyone has on a regular basis and adjust the salary, everyone +agreeing to all the numbers.
+2018
+We started operations in 2018. In late 2017, we got donations (in the form of +bitcoins) by friends who were convinced of our mission. This was 54,194.91 €. +So, in 2018 we started with that money, and tried to find a mission, and +generate income to sustain our salaries.
+Also, already in 2017, we applied for funding from +Prototypefund on a CalDAV server, +and we received the grant in early 2018. This was another 48,500 €, paid to +individuals (due to reasons, Prototype fund can't cash out to the non-profit - +this put us into some struggle, since we needed some double bookkeeping and +individuals had to dig into health care etc.).
+We also did in the second half of 2018 a security audit for +Least Authority +(invoicing 19,600 €).
+And later in 2018 we started on what is now called NetHSM with an initial +design workshop (5,000 €).
+And lastly, we started to work on a grant to implement TLS 1.3, +funded by Jane Street (via OCaml Labs Consulting). In 2018, we received 12,741.71 €
+We applied at NLNet for improving the QubesOS firewall developed in MirageOS +(without success), tried to get the IT security prize in Germany (without +success), and to DIAL OSC (without success).
+| Project | +Amount | +
|---|---|
| Donation | +54,194.91 | +
| Prototypefund | +48,500.00 | +
| Least Authority | +19,600.00 | +
| TLS 1.3 | +12,741.71 | +
| Nitrokey | +5,000.00 | +
| Total | +140,036.62 | +
2019
+We were keen to finish the CalDAV implementation (and start a CardDAV +implementation), and received some financial support from Tarides for it +(15,000 €).
+The TLS 1.3 work continued, we got in total 68,887.53 €.
+We also applied to (and got funding from) Prototypefund, once with an OpenVPN-compatible +MirageOS unikernel, +and once with improving the QubesOS firewall developed as MirageOS unikernel. +This means again twice 48,500 €.
+We also started the implementation work of NetHSM - which still included a lot +of design work - in total the contract was over 82,500 €. In 2019, we invoiced +Nitrokey in 2019 in total 40,500 €.
+We also received a total of 516.48 € as donations from source unknown to us.
+We also applied to NLnet with DNSvizor, and +got a grant, but due to buerocratic reasons they couldn't transfer the money to +our non-profit (which was involved with NLnet in some EU grants), and we didn't +get any money in the end.
+| Project | +Amount | +
|---|---|
| CardDAV | +15,000.00 | +
| TLS 1.3 | +68,887.53 | +
| OpenVPN | +48,500.00 | +
| QubesOS | +48,500.00 | +
| Donation | +516.48 | +
| Nitrokey | +40,500.00 | +
| Total | +221,904.01 | +
2020
+In 2020, we agreed with OCaml Labs Consulting to work on maintenance of OCaml +packages in the MirageOS ecosystem. This was a contract where at the end of the +month, we reported on which PRs and issues we spent how much time. For us, this +was great to have the freedom to work on which OCaml packages we were keen to +get up to speed. In 2020, we received 45,000 € for this maintenance.
+We finished the TLS 1.3 work (18,659.01 €)
+We continued to work on the NetHSM project, and invoiced 55,500 €.
+We received a total of 255 € in donations from sources unknown to us.
+We applied at reset.tech again with DNSvizor, unfortunately without success.
+We also applied at NGI pointer to work on reproducible +builds for MirageOS, and a web frontend. Here we got the grant of 200,000 €, +which we worked on in 2021 and 2022.
+| Project | +Amount | +
|---|---|
| OCLC | +45,000.00 | +
| TLS 1.3 | +18,659.01 | +
| Nitrokey | +55,500.00 | +
| Donations | +255.00 | +
| Total | +119,414.01 | +
2021
+As outlined, we worked on reproducible builds of unikernels - rethinking the way +how a unikernel is configured: no more compiled-in secrets, but instead using +boot parameters. We setup the infrastructure for doing daily reproducible +builds, serving system packages via a package repository, and a +web frontend hosting the reproducible builds. +We received in total 120,000 € from NGI Pointer in 2021.
+Our work on NetHSM continued, including the introduction of elliptic curves +in mirage-crypto (using fiat). The +invoices to Nitrokey summed up to 26,000 € in 2021.
+We developed in a short timeframe two packages, u2f +and later webauthn for Skolem Labs based +on gift economy. This resulted in +donations of 18,976 €.
+We agreed with OCSF to work on
+conex, which we have not delivered yet
+(lots of other things had to be cleared first: we did a security review of opam
+(leading to a security advisory),
+we got rid of extra-files
+in the opam-repository, and we removed the weak hash md5
+from the opam-repository.
| Customer | +Amount | +
|---|---|
| NGI Pointer | +120,000.00 | +
| Nitrokey | +26,000.00 | +
| Skolem | +18,976.00 | +
| Total | +164,976.00 | +
2022
+We finished our NGI pointer project, and received another 80,000 €.
+We also did some minor maintenance for Nitrokey, and invoiced 4,500 €.
+For Tarides, we started another maintaining MirageOS packages (and continuing +our TCP/IP stack), and invoiced in +total 22,500 €.
+A grant application for bob was rejected, +but a grant application for MirageVPN +got accepted. Both at NLnet within the EU NGI project.
+| Project | +Amount | +
|---|---|
| NGI Pointer | +80,000.00 | +
| Nitrokey | +4,500.00 | +
| Tarides | +22,500.00 | +
| Total | +107,000.00 | +
2023
+We finished the NetHSM project, and had a final invoice over 2,500 €.
+We started a collaboration for semgrep, porting some of +their Python code to OCaml. We received in total 37,500 €.
+We continued the MirageOS opam package maintenance and invoiced in total +89,250 € to Tarides.
+A grant application on MirageVPN got +accepted (NGI Assure), and we received in total 12,000 € for our work on it. +This is a continuation of our 2019 work funded by Prototypefund.
+We also wrote various funding applications, including one for +DNSvizor that was +accepted (NGI0 Entrust).
+| Customer | +Amount | +
|---|---|
| Nitrokey | +2,500.00 | +
| semgrep | +37,500.00 | +
| Tarides | +89,250.00 | +
| MirageVPN | +12,000.00 | +
| Total | +141,250.00 | +
2024
+We're still in the middle of it, but so far we continued the Tarides maintenance +contract (54,937.50 €).
+We also finished the MirageVPN work, and received another 45,000 €.
+We had a contract with Semgrep again on porting Python code to OCaml and received 18,559.40 €.
+We again worked on several successful funding applications, one on +PTT (NGI Zero Core), a continuation of the +NGI DAPSI project - +now realizing mailing lists with our SMTP stack.
+We also got MTE (NGI Taler) accepted.
+The below table is until end of September 2024.
+| Project | +Amount | +
|---|---|
| Semgrep | +18,559.40 | +
| Tarides | +62,812.50 | +
| MirageVPN | +45,000.00 | +
| Total | +126,371.90 | +
Total
+In a single table, here's our income since robur started.
+| Year | +Amount | +
|---|---|
| 2018 | +140,036.62 | +
| 2019 | +221,904.01 | +
| 2020 | +119,414.01 | +
| 2021 | +164,976.00 | +
| 2022 | +107,000.00 | +
| 2023 | +141,250.00 | +
| 2024 | +126,371.90 | +
| Total | +1,020,952.54 | +
As you can spot, it varies quite a bit. In some years we have fewer money +available than in other years.
+Expenses
+As mentioned, the non-profit company Änderwerk running +the bookkeeping and legal stuff (invoices, tax statements, contracts, etc.) gets +a cut on each income we produce. They are doing amazing work and are very +quick responding to our queries.
+We spend most of our income on salary. Some money we spend on travel. We also +pay monthly for our server (plus some extra for hardware, and in June 2024 a +huge amount for trying to recover data from failed SSDs).
+Conclusion
+We have provided an overview of our income, we were three to five people working +at robur over the entire time. As written at the beginning, we use needs-based +payment. Our experience with this is great! It provides a lot of trust into each +other.
+Our funding is diverse from multiple sources - donations, commercial work, +public funding. This was our initial goal, and we're very happy that it works +fine over the last five years.
+Taking the numbers into account, we are not paying ourselves "industry standard" +rates - but we really love what we do - and sometimes we just take some time off. +We do work on various projects that we really really enjoy - but where (at the +moment) no funding is available for.
+We are always happy to discuss how our collective operates. If you're +interested, please drop us a message.
+Of course, if we receive donations, we use them wisely - mainly for working on +the currently not funded projects (bob, albatross, miou, mollymawk - to name a few). If you +can spare a dime or two, don't hesitate to donate. +Donations are tax-deductable in Germany (and should be in Europe) since we're a +registered non-profit.
+If you're interested in MirageOS and using it in your domain, don't hesitate +to reach out to us (via eMail: team@robur.coop) so we can start to chat - we're keen to deploy MirageOS +and find more domains where it is useful.
+ +
+ 
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