AzuraCast's Mandatory 2023 Year in Review
Published on December 21, 2023 by Buster Neece
Hello everyone! I'm Buster Neece, the creator and lead developer for the AzuraCast web radio management suite.
First of all, a huge thank-you to everyone who supports AzuraCast on any platform, whether it's here or GitHub Sponsors, Patreon, Ko-fi or elsewhere. I depend on your support to survive, so your support makes a significant and direct impact on my quality of life.
Now, a word about this update: on November 8, I got an e-mail fromour fiscal sponsor, the Open Collective Foundation, with a subject "Action req'd" and a text saying the org "invites (read: requires 🙃)" me to submit an annual update by December 21. I misread "req'd" as "requested" and didn't understand what "🙃" meant in an official e-mail, so I ignored this message as I was quite busy. The next e-mail I got from them was today, telling me in much clearer terms that my required update was due...today. They sent me this e-mail with zero days notice, and it was the first one they had sent that clearly said it was required. I won't lie, this pisses me off a little. So, before I get into what we've done this year, let me talk about one of our strongest challenges we've faced this year: OpenCollective itself.
Update: Okay, so clearly some wires got crossed here, but it only further illustrates what an absolute cluster OpenCollective's setup is. AzuraCast *isn't* sponsored by Open Collective Foundation, or OCF, it's sponsored by the very similarly-named Open Source Collective, or OSC. These are both fiscal hosts you can use on OpenCollective. Why OCF, who isn't my fiscal sponsor, sent me first a joking e-mail voluntelling me to submit an annual report, then a second one the day it was due saying it was required all along, is beyond me. However, to be clear, this isn't a requirement imposed upon us by OSC, who *is* our sponsor. So it's not their fault, but something still went wrong, and everything I say here about OpenCollective as a project is still 100% valid in my eyes.
OpenCollective is already unlike any other platform my project uses to sustain itself in that it involves a level of bureaucracy that, while I'm sure it's helpful for larger organizations, is 100% out of place in single-maintainer organizations. Basically, if I want to get the donations you send in, I have to submit an "invoice" requesting that I kindly be paid my own money by myself. Not only does this introduce a multi-day delay between donations arriving here and eventually being deposited into my bank account, but the goalposts on what this request has to include are ever-changing and seem to depend on who you get to review your transaction; I've had some get sent back to me because I needed to put a "date of service" on the invoice (the date is always "the whole time since the last invoice", but bureaucracy dictates that I say that explicitly), and some sent back to me because I wasn't clear enough on what I specifically did for the project (the answer to which is, almost always, "everything").
Combine that with the incredibly unpredictable payout times, involving what are sometimes weeks of delays during which rent and groceries become a dangerous uncertainty for me, and the bizarre and poorly-explained bureaucratic hurdles I have to go through (see: this report), and OpenCollective is easily the most frustrating and painful experience I have in trying to sustain myself as a free and open-source software dev. This is not how Patreon, Ko-fi, etc. conduct themselves, and if you're interested in making sure that I get access to your donation as quickly and reliably as possible, I'd encourage you to use those services instead.
Anyway, onto some good news!
2023 was an immensely productive year for AzuraCast. Here are just a few of the things we got done, alongside countless little tweaks, bug fixes and other improvements:
First of all, a huge thank-you to everyone who supports AzuraCast on any platform, whether it's here or GitHub Sponsors, Patreon, Ko-fi or elsewhere. I depend on your support to survive, so your support makes a significant and direct impact on my quality of life.
Now, a word about this update: on November 8, I got an e-mail from
Update: Okay, so clearly some wires got crossed here, but it only further illustrates what an absolute cluster OpenCollective's setup is. AzuraCast *isn't* sponsored by Open Collective Foundation, or OCF, it's sponsored by the very similarly-named Open Source Collective, or OSC. These are both fiscal hosts you can use on OpenCollective. Why OCF, who isn't my fiscal sponsor, sent me first a joking e-mail voluntelling me to submit an annual report, then a second one the day it was due saying it was required all along, is beyond me. However, to be clear, this isn't a requirement imposed upon us by OSC, who *is* our sponsor. So it's not their fault, but something still went wrong, and everything I say here about OpenCollective as a project is still 100% valid in my eyes.
OpenCollective is already unlike any other platform my project uses to sustain itself in that it involves a level of bureaucracy that, while I'm sure it's helpful for larger organizations, is 100% out of place in single-maintainer organizations. Basically, if I want to get the donations you send in, I have to submit an "invoice" requesting that I kindly be paid my own money by myself. Not only does this introduce a multi-day delay between donations arriving here and eventually being deposited into my bank account, but the goalposts on what this request has to include are ever-changing and seem to depend on who you get to review your transaction; I've had some get sent back to me because I needed to put a "date of service" on the invoice (the date is always "the whole time since the last invoice", but bureaucracy dictates that I say that explicitly), and some sent back to me because I wasn't clear enough on what I specifically did for the project (the answer to which is, almost always, "everything").
Combine that with the incredibly unpredictable payout times, involving what are sometimes weeks of delays during which rent and groceries become a dangerous uncertainty for me, and the bizarre and poorly-explained bureaucratic hurdles I have to go through (see: this report), and OpenCollective is easily the most frustrating and painful experience I have in trying to sustain myself as a free and open-source software dev. This is not how Patreon, Ko-fi, etc. conduct themselves, and if you're interested in making sure that I get access to your donation as quickly and reliably as possible, I'd encourage you to use those services instead.
Anyway, onto some good news!
2023 was an immensely productive year for AzuraCast. Here are just a few of the things we got done, alongside countless little tweaks, bug fixes and other improvements:
- This summer, we paid off a ton of tech debt by upgrading our frontend from Bootstrap 4 to 5 and from jQuery and Vue 2 to Vue 3 with TypeScript. We also made large sections of the app "single-page app" experiences, so that things like media playback would continue as you navigate around.
- We made having a well-mastered broadcast easier than ever with support for the open-source master_me library being built into every AzuraCast installation. We also added first-class in-app support for the popular StereoTool library.
- Under the hood, we added support for Podman (a Docker alternative), an automatic web-based updater, a new high-performance way of receiving Now Playing updates (via Centrifugo), and more.
- We updated our software to support the latest versions of Liquidsoap and Icecast-KH for better stability and new features for power users.
- We improved upon our already strong security by fixing vulnerabilities reported to us throughout the year. We also added passkey-based login for secure one-step login for users.
Looking forward, we have a ton of great feature ideas that have been submitted to us via https://features.azuracast.com/ and many of them are on our big to-do list. How fast I'm able to get around to those things depends heavily on my physical and mental health, so I don't want to give any estimates on things, but I can confidently say that AzuraCast continues to be a huge priority of mine and to occupy a great deal of my time and energy, and I have every intention of continuing to maintain it into 2024 and beyond.
Regardless of your plans this holiday and new year season, I wish you good health and happy times, whatever form that may come in for you. While I know my role in most people's lives is quite small, I know how much joy there is in the music and community that internet radio can bring, and I hope my work has made your life just a little brighter this year.
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Lauren,
Thank you so much for your response. I apologize for the frustration, but I hope you understand my points and the struggles I've had with OpenCollective over this year and previous years. I stand by the things I said in this message, and as someone who depends on the support of my community for basic survival and living expenses, all of those little problems add up very quickly and place a huge burden on my ability to survive.
I don't currently intend to remove OpenCollective as a funding source, as it's essential in allowing support for GitHub Sponsors for my organization, and I want users to be able to support my organization and my work wherever they prefer. All the same, that doesn't mean that, if they asked me personally which I'd prefer, I wouldn't pick a favorite.
I think we've uncovered yet another level of confusion here and it's a bizarre one for me, since AzuraCast is the *only* repository I host here on OpenCollective. I'm not sure why I'm getting e-mails about OCF if OSC is my fiscal host, especially such targeted e-mails suggesting that I, the person they're e-mailing, am required to submit an annual report, when I'm actually not even using them as a fiscal sponsor at all.
I'm sure I can't be the first person to point out that the web site being OpenCollective and, within it, having two fiscal hosts named the Open Source Collective and the Open Collective Foundation, is an absolute recipe for disaster with regard to confusion amongst both project owners and supporters. The names are so similar that it didn't even click with me that OCF *wasn't* my fiscal sponsor, as the name was so close to OSC that I just assumed it was from some related wing of the same organization. It's been hard for me to keep them apart mentally even when typing this message.
All the same, in this case, my chief complaint absolutely lies with OCF. Why are they messaging their users with such confusing messages, then only clarifying that they were 100% serious about the reporting requirement ON the deadline of that report being submitted? Why were they messaging me *at all*, considering I have no projects associated with them?
I have some digging to do on that, but I've updated the parent post here accordingly to clarify that this issue isn't one with OSC.
Thank you again for your response.
- Buster Neece
Thank you so much for your response. I apologize for the frustration, but I hope you understand my points and the struggles I've had with OpenCollective over this year and previous years. I stand by the things I said in this message, and as someone who depends on the support of my community for basic survival and living expenses, all of those little problems add up very quickly and place a huge burden on my ability to survive.
I don't currently intend to remove OpenCollective as a funding source, as it's essential in allowing support for GitHub Sponsors for my organization, and I want users to be able to support my organization and my work wherever they prefer. All the same, that doesn't mean that, if they asked me personally which I'd prefer, I wouldn't pick a favorite.
I think we've uncovered yet another level of confusion here and it's a bizarre one for me, since AzuraCast is the *only* repository I host here on OpenCollective. I'm not sure why I'm getting e-mails about OCF if OSC is my fiscal host, especially such targeted e-mails suggesting that I, the person they're e-mailing, am required to submit an annual report, when I'm actually not even using them as a fiscal sponsor at all.
I'm sure I can't be the first person to point out that the web site being OpenCollective and, within it, having two fiscal hosts named the Open Source Collective and the Open Collective Foundation, is an absolute recipe for disaster with regard to confusion amongst both project owners and supporters. The names are so similar that it didn't even click with me that OCF *wasn't* my fiscal sponsor, as the name was so close to OSC that I just assumed it was from some related wing of the same organization. It's been hard for me to keep them apart mentally even when typing this message.
All the same, in this case, my chief complaint absolutely lies with OCF. Why are they messaging their users with such confusing messages, then only clarifying that they were 100% serious about the reporting requirement ON the deadline of that report being submitted? Why were they messaging me *at all*, considering I have no projects associated with them?
I have some digging to do on that, but I've updated the parent post here accordingly to clarify that this issue isn't one with OSC.
Thank you again for your response.
- Buster Neece
on
We hear your concerns about filing expenses and receiving payments as an individual and understand the fiscal hosting option isn't the best solution for everyone. We wrote up a guide for single maintainers to help decide what type of funding platform is a better fit: https://docs.oscollective.org/readme/is-osc-right-for-me
If you decide a service like Patreon or Kofi is a better way to go, here's how you can 0 out your balance and archive your account on Open Collective: https://docs.oscollective.org/faq/closing-a-collective#how-do-i-close-my-collective
Sorry if there was confusion caused by the end-of-year review email sent by Open Collective Foundation (OCF). This policy is associated with a different fiscal host, the Open Collective Foundation, and not with OSC, which currently hosts AzureCast. It seems that one of your other open source projects is hosted by the Open Collective Foundation, and we believe that might be the source of the confusion. To clarify, you didn't need to conduct an end-of-year review for AzuraCast, the collective hosted by OSC.
Something to consider is that OSC and OCF are two different types of nonprofit entities. OSC is a 501c6 (for member benefit) and OCF is a 501c3 (for public benefit). We also have two different mission statements and all of this means we have different rules around our expenses regarding what is and is not allowed (per IRS regulations). This might make things more complicated when filing expenses if you have two collectives on separate fiscal hosts. We have some examples of what OSC needs to see in an expense here https://docs.oscollective.org/how-it-works/basics/invoice-and-reimbursement-examples
If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out. The best way to reach us is at [email protected]
Thanks,
-Lauren