5 Dec
2025
5 Dec
'25
12:49 p.m.
Hi folks,
The XSF needs to decide on the future of its fiscal hosting programme.
For those unfamiliar, fiscal hosting is a service the XSF has been
offering for a few years now. It allows qualifying XMPP-related
projects to essentially use the XSF as a way to receive money (e.g.
donations from sponsors) and pay expenses (e.g. server costs). This
saves projects from the trouble of setting up their own organization,
bank account, and so on.
To help organize this, we use the Open Collective platform which was
purpose-built for this kind of arrangement. However, Open Collective
have let us know that they will be raising their prices in 2026:
https://pricing-2026.opencollective.com/
Under their previous pricing, our usage did not incur any costs and we
were able to use their platform for free.
They are planning to charge us ~$15/month per project ("collective")
that we host. This is very expensive relative to the amount of funding
we are enabling. For example:
We currently have 5 collectives, and I checked their "estimated annual
budget" earlier this year when the new pricing was announced (income
was calculated by OpenCollective based on the prior 12 months of
activity):
Mellium: $15/month == 180% of their annual budget
Prav: $15/month == 50% of their annual budget
diasp.in: $15/month == 1000% of their annual budget
Bifrost: dormant, $0 raised during past 12 months
Prav iOS app: $15/month == 178% of their annual budget
If we end the fiscal hosting programme, we will need to transfer to
existing projects any funds that we are currently holding for them.
If we continue, we need to agree that the expenses are justified.
I propose this topic as an agenda item for the next board meeting
(15th December). In the meantime, if any members have opinions, please
feel free to share them.
Regards,
Matthew
5 Dec
5 Dec
1:03 p.m.
On 12/5/25 5:49 AM, Matthew Wild wrote:
Hi folks,
The XSF needs to decide on the future of its fiscal hosting programme.
For those unfamiliar, fiscal hosting is a service the XSF has been
offering for a few years now. It allows qualifying XMPP-related
projects to essentially use the XSF as a way to receive money (e.g.
donations from sponsors) and pay expenses (e.g. server costs). This
saves projects from the trouble of setting up their own organization,
bank account, and so on.
To help organize this, we use the Open Collective platform which was
purpose-built for this kind of arrangement. However, Open Collective
have let us know that they will be raising their prices in 2026:
https://pricing-2026.opencollective.com/
Under their previous pricing, our usage did not incur any costs and we
were able to use their platform for free.
They are planning to charge us ~$15/month per project ("collective")
that we host. This is very expensive relative to the amount of funding
we are enabling. For example:
We currently have 5 collectives, and I checked their "estimated annual
budget" earlier this year when the new pricing was announced (income
was calculated by OpenCollective based on the prior 12 months of
activity):
Mellium: $15/month == 180% of their annual budget
Prav: $15/month == 50% of their annual budget
diasp.in: $15/month == 1000% of their annual budget
Bifrost: dormant, $0 raised during past 12 months
Prav iOS app: $15/month == 178% of their annual budget
In discussing this a few months ago with you and Sam Whited (the other
O.C. admin), I came up with an alternative. If we host only one
collective, O.C. will provide the service for free. Thus if we drop all
but Prav and Prav iOS (our two most active collectives) and ask them to
fold Prav iOS under the Prav umbrella, we could continue to host Prav.
However, one could argue that hosting only one collective somewhat
defeats the purpose...
Peter
1:06 p.m.
On Fri, 5 Dec 2025 at 12:49, Matthew Wild <mwild1(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi folks,
The XSF needs to decide on the future of its fiscal hosting programme.
Apologies for the double post, but Mathieu highlighted that I had
overlooked some communication from Open Collective. They wrote:
In the message we sent, we initially recommended the
$59 / $649 plan because it seemed you were using the Wise or PayPal payout option.
One important part of our pricing is that we're counting "Active
Collectives" which we currently define as having a transaction in the month.
According to this metric, XSF currently have 0 or 1 active collective in the last months,
meaning you should fall on the free tier if you're not using the Wise or PayPal payout
option.
https://pricing-2026.opencollective.com/?recommended=discover&period=mo…
Organizations like the XMPP Standards Foundation are definitely the target audience for
our platform, and generally for our non-profit organization. It would be a shame to have
you leave the platform because of this new pricing. If my explanation above is not enough,
I'm willing to further discuss and find a satisfying arrangement to make sure this
doesn't happen.
Regards,
Matthew
1:13 p.m.
On 12/5/25 6:06 AM, Matthew Wild wrote:
On Fri, 5 Dec 2025 at 12:49, Matthew Wild
<mwild1(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Well, here's the other problem I have with this new pricing model.
We use Wise to reimburse volunteers (and, to date, to complete payouts
from O.C. to fically hosted projects) because it saves us a lot of money
compared to old-fashioned wire transfers. Do we really want to pay a $25
bank fee every time we do a payout? Maybe there are other options (e.g.,
transfer funds from O.C. to our bank account and then to Wise, rather
than using a Wise integration directly at O.C.), and I can look into
that, but it seems rather Byzantine.
Peter
Hi folks,
The XSF needs to decide on the future of its fiscal hosting programme.
Apologies for the double post, but Mathieu highlighted that I had
overlooked some communication from Open Collective. They wrote:
> In the message we sent, we initially recommended the $59 / $649 plan because it
seemed you were using the Wise or PayPal payout option.
>
> One important part of our pricing is that we're counting "Active
Collectives" which we currently define as having a transaction in the month.
According to this metric, XSF currently have 0 or 1 active collective in the last months,
meaning you should fall on the free tier if you're not using the Wise or PayPal payout
option. 
15 Dec
15 Dec
6:23 p.m.
Hello everyone,
Following up on the discussion regarding fiscal hosting after a Board
meeting:
The Board has reviewed the current program and agrees that, at its current
scale, the effort and administrative overhead are not justified. There is
consensus to phase out the fiscal hosting program in its current form.
We plan to handle this carefully, supporting existing hosted projects in
transitioning to alternative funding mechanisms such as direct donations,
Liberapay, or other platforms. This will help reduce disruption while
ensuring fairness to the projects.
Please let us know if you have any immediate concerns or suggestions
regarding this transition. We aim to ensure a smooth wind-down without
impacting ongoing project activities.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Fri, Dec 5, 2025 at 2:13 PM Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter(a)stpeter.im> wrote:
On 12/5/25 6:06 AM, Matthew Wild wrote:
On Fri, 5 Dec 2025 at 12:49, Matthew Wild
<mwild1(a)gmail.com> wrote:
because
it seemed you were using the Wise or PayPal payout option.
Hi folks,
The XSF needs to decide on the future of its fiscal hosting programme.
Apologies for the double post, but Mathieu highlighted that I had
overlooked some communication from Open Collective. They wrote:
> In the message we sent, we initially recommended the $59 / $649 plan >
> One important part of our pricing is that we're counting "Active
Collectives" which we currently define as having a transaction in the
month. According to this metric, XSF currently have 0 or 1 active
collective in the last months, meaning you should fall on the free tier if
you're not using the Wise or PayPal payout option.
Well, here's the other problem I have with this new pricing model.
We use Wise to reimburse volunteers (and, to date, to complete payouts
from O.C. to fically hosted projects) because it saves us a lot of money
compared to old-fashioned wire transfers. Do we really want to pay a $25
bank fee every time we do a payout? Maybe there are other options (e.g.,
transfer funds from O.C. to our bank account and then to Wise, rather
than using a Wise integration directly at O.C.), and I can look into
that, but it seems rather Byzantine.
Peter
27 Dec
27 Dec
10:10 a.m.
Hi all and thanks Guus for the update
The Board has reviewed the current program and agrees
that, at its
current scale, the effort and administrative overhead are not
justified. There is consensus to phase out the fiscal hosting program
in its current form.
I missed most of the discussion regarding this as I was travelling! This
is not the decision I was hoping for, mainly because I think it's good
for XMPP to have its own funding support rather than rely on more
centralised alternatives like the Open Source Collective, but I do agree
that Open Collective's originally quoted fees were inordinate.
I just wanted to check if there has been any further communication with
Open Collective regarding this? They seemed open to negotiation, so
perhaps they can get rid of the Wise fees or reduce costs in some other
way, if we ask them. (The quoted discussions were from an email
conversation between Open Collective and myself, who didn't know much
about the details and only wanted to initiate the
discussion. Personally, I think their pricing was made thinking of a few
large projects and didn't take into account a multitude of small
projects like XMPP has).
(Of course all this is assuming the fees are the main reason for
deciding to discontinue the programme, and low participation etc. were
secondary issues)
We plan to handle this carefully, supporting existing
hosted projects
in transitioning to alternative funding mechanisms such as direct
donations, Liberapay, or other platforms. This will help reduce
disruption while ensuring fairness to the projects.
Please let us know if you have any immediate concerns or suggestions
regarding this transition. We aim to ensure a smooth wind-down without
impacting ongoing project activities.
Moving forward, I wanted to share some general notes regarding the
Indian situation since that was brought up but not covered. Being from
India, I have been hanging out in the MUCs of and participating in a few
of these projects. That said, what follows is with my "personal hat"
rather than that of any project ;-)
Besides limited payment options (India is very finicky about letting
payments in), "having a legal entity to collect donations on our behalf"
is also an important service for projects based in India. Indian law
does not allow donations except for very specific purposes like
education, so the way we do it via fiscal host is that the fiscal host
receives donations, and individuals in India then "bill" the fiscal host
for the "work" they do (as far as Indian-facing accounting is
concerned). This is what I've been advised to do for my NLnet grant as
well, to just declare it as income (and potentially pay taxes on it; I'm
"fortunately" under the tax ceiling at the moment).
I wonder if there is some way the XSF can help this happen regardless of
Open Collective or not (and without putting too much burden on Peter who
has already gone through a rather unpleasant time signing up for Indian
money transfer services before we ended up going for bank transfer!)?
Personally, I had my eye on XSF fiscal hosting for Convo as well once it
got stable after the NLnet grant concluded, so this is something of a
setback (I have Liberapay linked to my personal account but it's a legal
grey area and I'm not sure if I'll be able to continue it).
Alternatively, perhaps there's some other organisation we're in touch
with who's more in the business of moving money around? We could work
out a system where the XSF vets projects and then passes them on to the
other organisation to do the actual administrative work.
Finally, regarding participation in the programme: I do think
early-stage projects (that are yet to grow big enough to manage their
own things, but just need a head start) are the ones that get the most
benefit from this programme, so it helps to have the option ready for
when such a project comes up, even if no such projects are there at the
moment. I'm going to be self-centred and pull up Convo as an example
again. Assuming Open Collective fiscal hosting is discontinued, perhaps
we could set up a place to collect names of such projects who think they
would benefit from some kind of fiscal-hosting-type support, and if we
think there's enough interest we can start looking into how they can be
supported?
I like the idea suggested (I think by Guus, in the MUC?) of continuing
to list projects that are looking for funding. That would help increase
peoples' trust even if the projects are opting to use a less-known
platform for whatever reason.
Best,
Badri
2 Jan
2 Jan
1:38 p.m.
Hi all,
Thanks Badri for raising these points, they are helpful.
On Open Collective: beyond the exchanges already shared on this list, there
has not been further negotiation that I am aware of, that changes the
overall picture. While Open Collective indicated some willingness to
discuss pricing or arrangements, we concluded that fees were not the only
issue. Ongoing administrative effort, payout handling (including Wise and
regional constraints), and reliance on person-specific processes were
equally important factors.
For that reason, the decision to wind down the programme does not hinge on
Open Collective alone, and moving to a different platform would not
materially address the underlying concerns.
I do recognise that fiscal hosting can be particularly valuable in regions
with legal or banking restrictions, including India. At this time, however,
I'm not seeing a way for the XSF to offer that service sustainably without
recreating the same overhead under a different form.
The points about early-stage projects and the value of having an option
ready are noted and will be kept on record. They can inform any future
discussion of lighter-weight alternatives, such as improving visibility for
vetted projects seeking funding.
For now, the focus remains on an orderly transition for existing hosted
projects rather than designing a replacement programme.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Sat, Dec 27, 2025 at 11:11 AM Badri Sunderarajan <badrihippo(a)disroot.org>
wrote:
Hi all and thanks Guus for the update
The Board has reviewed the current program and
agrees that, at its
current scale, the effort and administrative overhead are not
justified. There is consensus to phase out the fiscal hosting program
in its current form.
I missed most of the discussion regarding this as I was travelling! This
is not the decision I was hoping for, mainly because I think it's good
for XMPP to have its own funding support rather than rely on more
centralised alternatives like the Open Source Collective, but I do agree
that Open Collective's originally quoted fees were inordinate.
I just wanted to check if there has been any further communication with
Open Collective regarding this? They seemed open to negotiation, so
perhaps they can get rid of the Wise fees or reduce costs in some other
way, if we ask them. (The quoted discussions were from an email
conversation between Open Collective and myself, who didn't know much
about the details and only wanted to initiate the
discussion. Personally, I think their pricing was made thinking of a few
large projects and didn't take into account a multitude of small
projects like XMPP has).
(Of course all this is assuming the fees are the main reason for
deciding to discontinue the programme, and low participation etc. were
secondary issues)
We plan to handle this carefully, supporting
existing hosted projects
in transitioning to alternative funding mechanisms such as direct
donations, Liberapay, or other platforms. This will help reduce
disruption while ensuring fairness to the projects.
Please let us know if you have any immediate concerns or suggestions
regarding this transition. We aim to ensure a smooth wind-down without
impacting ongoing project activities.
Moving forward, I wanted to share some general notes regarding the
Indian situation since that was brought up but not covered. Being from
India, I have been hanging out in the MUCs of and participating in a few
of these projects. That said, what follows is with my "personal hat"
rather than that of any project ;-)
Besides limited payment options (India is very finicky about letting
payments in), "having a legal entity to collect donations on our behalf"
is also an important service for projects based in India. Indian law
does not allow donations except for very specific purposes like
education, so the way we do it via fiscal host is that the fiscal host
receives donations, and individuals in India then "bill" the fiscal host
for the "work" they do (as far as Indian-facing accounting is
concerned). This is what I've been advised to do for my NLnet grant as
well, to just declare it as income (and potentially pay taxes on it; I'm
"fortunately" under the tax ceiling at the moment).
I wonder if there is some way the XSF can help this happen regardless of
Open Collective or not (and without putting too much burden on Peter who
has already gone through a rather unpleasant time signing up for Indian
money transfer services before we ended up going for bank transfer!)?
Personally, I had my eye on XSF fiscal hosting for Convo as well once it
got stable after the NLnet grant concluded, so this is something of a
setback (I have Liberapay linked to my personal account but it's a legal
grey area and I'm not sure if I'll be able to continue it).
Alternatively, perhaps there's some other organisation we're in touch
with who's more in the business of moving money around? We could work
out a system where the XSF vets projects and then passes them on to the
other organisation to do the actual administrative work.
Finally, regarding participation in the programme: I do think
early-stage projects (that are yet to grow big enough to manage their
own things, but just need a head start) are the ones that get the most
benefit from this programme, so it helps to have the option ready for
when such a project comes up, even if no such projects are there at the
moment. I'm going to be self-centred and pull up Convo as an example
again. Assuming Open Collective fiscal hosting is discontinued, perhaps
we could set up a place to collect names of such projects who think they
would benefit from some kind of fiscal-hosting-type support, and if we
think there's enough interest we can start looking into how they can be
supported?
I like the idea suggested (I think by Guus, in the MUC?) of continuing
to list projects that are looking for funding. That would help increase
peoples' trust even if the projects are opting to use a less-known
platform for whatever reason.
Best,
Badri
9 Jan
9 Jan
4:59 a.m.
Hi all,
Thanks for the clarifications Guus. I did wonder if the high fiscal
hosting fees was the main issue or merely the trigger for a broader
discussion that was going to happen anyway.
I've stated what I wanted to, so I suppose we can revisit the discussion
whenever we do start thinking about alternate ways to support projects.
I suppose this will happen after the existing Open Collective hosted
projects are migrated. (By the way, I appreciate that this is happening
gradually and making sure the projects have enough time to set up a
stable alternative).
The points about early-stage projects and the value of
having an
option ready are noted and will be kept on record. They can inform any
future discussion of lighter-weight alternatives, such as improving
visibility for vetted projects seeking funding.
One low-hanging fruit could be to list such projects on the XMPP
Newsletter (in place of the XMPP fiscal hosting projects that used to be
listed). This actually has the added advantage that we can support all
XMPP projects looking for funding and are not restricted to only the
ones we are fiscally hosting. People are sometimes hesitant to donate on
"unknown platforms" (which could include "details on project website")
so having the donation page listed by the XSF would help increase trust.
We would have to work out a vetting process first, of course.
Best,
Badri
1
days inactive
36
days old
7 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Badri Sunderarajan -
Guus der Kinderen -
Matthew Wild -
Peter Saint-Andre