Yes, hiring waddlesplash will be happening, we just need to work out the details. His current job ends this week and then he wanted to take a bit of time off for himself and would be available to start for Haiku later in August. I thought that was good as it gives Haiku, Inc some time to get a bit more organized as well. The details we need to work out are whether we can make use of a service to hire him as a normal employee or whether a contractor makes more sense. We need to set up some sort of employment agreement as well.
Haiku, Inc plans to have a meeting soon to discuss this and other issues (we haven’t had a meeting in too long, so either way we need to.) This is mainly a formality as over email everyone has agreed this is a great idea. Also I am putting finishing touches on the 2020 financial report and getting things in places so future reports will be easier. This way everyone is better aware of our financial situation.
I will try to start doing quarterly reports with this system in place as with an employee we will be using our funds much more quickly. We currently have a bit of a “runway” to pay waddlesplash but that will be depleted within a year or so and if we don’t get a steady income stream to support him obviously we won’t be able to do so. But I think things will work out as we have plenty of time to show the results of hiring him and also add on to our funding sources. Plenty of people and open source projects can survive on mainly personal donations so I think Haiku can too.
Regarding this thread I was talking with stellarpower about working for Haiku, Inc but for his needs it was better he found another position. Someone else here in the forums contacted me as well but we had not finished working that out yet. We had kind of given up hope on waddleplash but it was always the slam dunk hiring choice as we know he can be trusted to write good code and he has a good understanding of the project. Depending on how things go with him and our funding maybe we can hire more people. Starting with waddlesplash greatly reduces the risk to Haiku, Haiku, Inc and all our donors.