Fund and manage openEO

[m-mohr]

(This is more a discussion, rather than a vote)

Right now, openEO API and processes are basically just managed and maintained by me through various funding that the university receives, which is not always within the scope of the projects themselves. Thus, there is the question about how we want to handle this in the future.

What's the organizational structure? It's not always feasible to go through the university for smaller contracts/funds as the administrative work is huge. Should we try to found some kind of a non-profit organization? But then who would do the administrative tasks there? Should we go for directly funding individuals or companies? Is something like NumFocus an option?

Who can work on it apart from me? Most active in reviews and contributions is @soxofaan right now. Everyone is busy and it's pretty hard to find personnel so it doesn't seem there's an obvious solution.

Thoughts @Open-EO/psc?

[mkadunc]

I would try with something lightweight first, i.e. instead of founding a new org, try to join an existing foundation (or other type of non-profit legal person) that can handle the bank accounts, and then allow donations with no-paperwork tools such as Stripe, PayPal, github sponsors, Ko-fi etc.

Once we have that we just have to figure out how to pay for the work done (where again we should aim for as little paperwork as possible)