2024 Q1 Transparency report

From: Louis Tatta (louis_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-05-16 18:51:02

Hello, Louis Tatta here, CEO of The C++ Alliance, Inc, a registered
501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the support of C++. This is
our Q1 2024 transparency report regarding our charitable work for the Boost
C++ Library Collection.

First, some background on our operations. The C++ Alliance seeks out highly
talented and experienced C++ experts and hires them, usually full-time, so
they can focus completely on their open-source projects. Our Staff
Engineers maintain existing Boost libraries, write new Boost libraries, and
contribute to other Boost projects. We employ IT experts full-time to
maintain and improve the infrastructure which supports Boost, including the
legacy web server, the Drone continuous integration servers, the scripts
used to deploy GitHub Actions for Boost repositories, and the scripts which
publish the Boost release. In addition, we provide on-demand technical
support services for Boost authors and maintainers who have
infrastructure-related problems.

The Boost Mailing List continues to be the premier place for high-quality
discussion of the Boost libraries and tangential C++ Standards related
topics. The C++ Alliance supports the use of the mailing lists going
forward. We are upgrading it to the latest Mailman version and building an
optional web-based front-end allowing interaction using only a browser.

We continue to operate the Official C++ Language Slack Workspace (
https://cpp.al/slack) which hosts the most popular interactive discussions
regarding the Boost libraries. The C++ Alliance sponsors a paid plan to
provide full history, video and audio conferences, collaboration tools, and
unlimited document storage for seventeen dedicated Boost library channels
and one main Boost discussion channel.

Our largest project for Q1 2024 is the continuation of work on the new
Boost website. The new site is a C++ social media portal with rich support
for user-generated content and a powerful back-end which has visibility
into the contributions made on GitHub and the release process. This allows
us to deliver an elevated user experience with the hopes of attracting
fresh talent to Boost. Also, note that the graphics on the website are
hand-drawn by our contract artist and reflect our level of commitment to
ensure that Boost, to put it simply, looks good.

In Q1 2024 there were a total of two Boost Formal Reviews. One of the
reviewed libraries is authored by a C++ Alliance Staff Engineer. None of
the reviews were managed by C++ Alliance team members. Out of a total of
sixteen submitted reviews for the quarter, eight were from C++ Alliance
team members.

This quarter, we increased our efforts to build Boost’s social media
presence. There were a total of six messages from the @Boost_Libraries X
(formerly Twitter) account, all submitted by C++ Alliance team members.
Three of them contained artwork from Bob Ostrom commissioned by us.
Messages containing images get three times more engagement than text-only
messages. We believe that the X platform has unique strategic value for
informing newer generations about the Boost value proposition.

A total of $406,000 was spent on Boost-related contributions, broken down
thusly (and rounded to the nearest thousand):

Staff Engineers Compensation $317,000
Website Software Development $64,000
Server Hosting $25,000

During Q1 2024 we employed a total of 12 individuals to contribute to
Boost. Here is a high-level summary of accomplishments:

Sam Darwin (Chief Technical Officer)
* Boost website maintenance and administration
* Boost per-pull-request documentation previews
* Boost Release Process development, maintenance, and administration
* Boost Mailman services maintenance and upgrade
* Boost GitHub Actions self-hosted runner project development
* Boost Drone service administration and maintenance
* New Boost website deployment, administration, and development

Dmitry Arkhipov (Staff Engineer)
* Boost.JSON maintenance

Alan de Freitas (Staff Engineer)
https://cppalliance.org/alan/2024/05/07/AlanQ1Update.html
* Boost.URL maintenance
* Mr. Docs project management (https://mrdocs.com)
* GitHub actions support scripts for Boost CI
(https://alandefreitas.github.io/cpp-actions/cpp-actions/index.html)

Christian Mazakas (Staff Engineer)
* Boost.Unordered evolution project
* Boost.Buffers development (new library)
* Boost.Http.Proto, Boost.Http.Io development (new libraries)

Krystian Stasiowski (Staff Engineer)
* Boost.StaticString maintenance
* Mr. Docs Lead engineer (https://mrdocs.com/)
* Clang/LLVM contributions

Peter Turcan (Senior Technical Writer)
* Boost User Guide development (new documentation)
* Boost Contributor Guide (new documentation)
* Boost Formal Reviews (new documentation)

Matt Borland (Staff Engineer)
* Boost.Decimal (proposed library)
* Multi (https://github.com/correaa/Boost-Multi) review manager
* Boost.Math maintenance

Ruben Perez
* Boost.PFR integration and maintenance work
* Boost.MySQL maintenance (new, accepted library)
* Boost.Charconv
* User Guide, Contributor Guide contribution (new documentation)

Mohammad Nejati (Staff Engineer)
* Boost.Http.Proto and Boost.Buffers (new libraries)
* Boost-Gecko (full-text site search)
* Boost.Beast maintenance

Fernando Pelliccioni (Staff Engineer)
* Mr. Docs development (https://mrdocs.com/)

Spencer Strickland (Senior Web Developer)
* New website front-end and scripting

Joaquin M Lopez Munoz (Staff Engineer)
* Boost.Unordered evolution project lead
* Boost.Bimap
* Boost promotion and new website