The LinkAhead Future Pass: Make your voice count
LinkAhead is made for the scientific community and we at IndiScale want our development efforts to reflect this. For this purpose, we created the LinkAhead Future Pass, which allows you, the community stakeholders, to decide about the direction of LinkAhead’s development.
The most important information for download: Future_Pass_en.pdf
How does the LinkAhead Future Pass work and how can I become part of it?
- LinkAhead Pro subscriptions include a LinkAhead Future Pass, but it is also possible to acquire Future Passes separately.
- There is a separate pool of development resources and the LinkAhead Future Pass holders can decide on how these resources are spent.
- Part of the LinkAhead subscription fee, and the full LinkAhead Future Pass fees, fill up this development pool.
- There will be regular community meetings where IndiScale informs about past LinkAhead development and where the Future Pass holders decide about priorities for spending the development pool.
That sounds complex, I am more of a visual person
The overall idea is quite simple, here is a visualization:
Why do you do this?
We (that is, the people at IndiScale) want LinkAhead to be the best solution for data management, and to fulfill its users’ needs.
We believe that the best way to achieve this is to ask you directly: what do you need the most? Which direction should the development take next? Which issues are the most pressing?
And we want to give you actual power in decision taking, and a tool to join forces.
Are there several LinkAhead Future Pass levels?
Yes indeed. There will be the following levels, and they have different numbers of votes in the decision process:
- Starter: 3 votes
- Bronze: 10 votes
- Silver: 20 votes
- Gold: 30 votes
I have a LinkAhead Pro subscription, what is my Future Pass level?
That depends on the number of users of your LinkAhead Pro subscription. This is how we map subscription fees to automatic LinkAhead Future Pass levels:
| Subscription fee | Future Pass Level | Votes |
|---|---|---|
| under 1000 (yearly) | Starter | 3 |
| 1000€ or more (yearly) | Bronze | 10 |
| 2000€ or more (yearly) | Silver | 20 |
| 10000€ or more (yearly) | Gold | 30 |
What, exactly, is this development pool?
The development pool is a collection of development hours, and IndiScale will work this amount of time on the decided LinkAhead development.
The pool has two sources: LinkAhead Pro subscriptions and custom LinkAhead Future Pass sales. Half of the subscription fee goes into the pool and all of the custom LinkAhead Future Pass fees. This amount of money is then converted to development hours, at IndiScale’s development quota hourly rate (“Entwicklungskontingent”). IndiScale then tops this with another 25%.
So in the end, the development pool consists of development time that will be spent on wherever the LinkAhead community sees the largest benefits.
I do not have or need a LinkAhead Pro subscription, but I still want to profit from a LinkAhead Future Pass
Sure, we have an option just for you: LinkAhead Future Passes can also be purchased for money. You get all the benefits and support the development pool with 100% of your Future Pass fee. These are the Future Pass levels you get:
| Level | LinkAhead Future Pass fee | Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 500€ or more (1 year) | 10 |
| Silver | 1000€ or more (1 year) | 20 |
| Gold | 5000€ or more (1 year) | 30 |
Please contact us 📨 if you are interested in this possibility.
How does the decision making work?
Once a year, there is a community event with the FutureForum where LinkAhead Future Pass holders meet and set their priorities for the future development of LinkAhead.
The actual procedure will be roughly like this:
- Several months before the community event, all LinkAhead Future Pass holders are invited to send in proposals and ideas for future development.
- Our developers will merge your input into actionable proposals and assign effort estimates. We will contact you in case of questions, to represent your intentions as well as possible.
- Shortly before the event, we will send a compiled list of proposals to all LinkAhead Future Pass holders, together with the current size of the development pool and voting links (in case you cannot make it to the event in person).
- At the meeting during the community event, IndiScale and Future Pass holders will present the proposals, there will be time for discussion and then the voting takes place.
- The voting results in a list of proposals, ordered by priority.
- During the following year, IndiScale will spend the time in the development pool on this list, from highest to lowest priority.
Is there more to this annual community event?
Definitely. For LinkAhead Future Pass holders, there will be a detailed presentation of the development milestones of the last year: which new features there are, how many issues were fixed and what the coming plans of IndiScale are. We will also invite all users of LinkAhead to present their most interesting use cases and provide plenty of room for social interaction, to foster horizontal connections between users of different fields or institutions.
Are there more benefits of a LinkAhead Future Pass?
You mean, more than deciding LinkAhead’s development in the next year?
If the community event requires a registration fee, LinkAhead Future Pass will come with one free ticket.
And we are open to additional suggestions for benefits, if good ideas come up at the community event.