Summary

  • MetaBrainz's 2006 report counted eighteen donated chocolate bars from four countries. Dated announcements reveal the other supplies MusicBrainz needed: hardware, bandwidth and paid working time.
  • Google pledged $15,000 for a modest paycheck for Robert Kaye. A separate tagger sponsorship promised a monthly minimum; its first reported payment nearly covered the bandwidth bill.

Among the figures in MetaBrainz's 2006 annual report is an unusually appetising measure of public support: eighteen chocolate bars, sent from four countries. A shared music catalogue had acquired an international confectionery department.

The foundation also had expenses with rather less charm. MusicBrainz collected information about music, and the machines and people maintaining that information needed regular support. The year's original announcements follow the money—and the boxes—to particular jobs.

Two servers, one remaining shopping item

On 24 January, the project announced two donated Dell Poweredge 1750 servers from Halsey Minor of Minor Ventures and David Ulevitch of Freedom Networks. The post thanked them and immediately identified the next requirement: a substantial database server before the planned move into colocation in San Luis Obispo.

That small detail gives the donation its proper scale. Two useful machines moved a hardware plan forward. The next machine still had to be found. Gifts arrived in particular shapes; the operating requirements had their own list.

By July, another shortage had a name: Robert Kaye's time.

Keeping the programmer at his own project

On 6 July, Kaye announced Google's pledge of $15,000 to MetaBrainz. The intended use was a modest paycheck so that he could concentrate on managing MusicBrainz and writing code.

He explained what happened without that support. Periodically, he stopped working on MusicBrainz for a few weeks to take contract work and pay his bills. A lull in the project could begin in the maintainer's household budget. The person who knew what to do next had another customer to attend to.

Kaye expected the donation to cover at least six months. He hoped that further data licensing would keep the paychecks coming afterwards. The annual report later recorded the donation and the small salary it enabled. Paying for time gave the project a way to address those recurring absences directly.

A useful monthly habit

The next arrangement was smaller and deliberately repetitive. On 2 August, the project announced increased sponsorship from Matthias, the creator of Magic MP3 Tagger: €250 a month or 10% of registration income, whichever was greater. MusicBrainz added more prominent links to the tagger in exchange.

The floor gave the foundation an amount to count on; the revenue share offered more when registrations justified it. A useful piece of website real estate had become part of the support agreement.

On 14 September, Kaye reported the August result: €401.02. He said registrations had risen after the new links appeared and that the payment nearly covered the bandwidth bill. Here was a concrete return from a small agreement, measured against a recognisable expense.

The chocolate makes the annual report memorable. The payment schedule explains how the service acquired breathing room. A server could arrive in a box, and a donor could buy months of someone's attention. A tagger could send another payment when the next bill came due. Chocolate had excellent public relations; the monthly minimum had a calendar.

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