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title: Get Involved
---

## First steps

> You don't have to be a computer programmer to contribute to this project!

Firstly, come say hello in our [chat room](/intro/contact/) if you'd like to help out :wave: We are happy to have designers, critical thinkers, artists, hackers, documenters, etc. involved in this project! There is a lot of work to do, if you find this project interesting, we want to have you working with us.

We have [a weekly check-in](/get-involved/#kite-flying-hours) for contributors of this project to let each other know what we're working on, how much time we've spent on it and how to coordinate further work.

We have a [status page](/intro/bikemap) showing what we are aiming to achieve in the near future. That gives a good overview of where we're going together.

From this status page, we use an [issue tracker](https://git.coopcloud.tech/coop-cloud/organising/issues) where we hold discussions about what we want to do. We categorise these issues according to the bike map using these [milestones](https://git.coopcloud.tech/coop-cloud/organising/milestones). Finally, use this [board](https://git.coopcloud.tech/coop-cloud/organising/projects/8) to keep track of what we're working on right now. We collectively review these things on a weekly/monthly basis to keep track of our time spent vs. budget available.

Once you've found something to work on and are introduced, we'll give you an account on our [time tracking infrastructure](https://kimai.autonomic.zone) where you can log your times. This helps us reduce the burden of financial and time keeping admin falling on one person.

We have received funding via [the ECF](https://culturalfoundation.eu/initiatives/culture-of-solidarity-fund) and can offer £16 hourly rate for your work. We've written more on why we think it is important to compensate all contributions for this project below.

## Compensation

We think that it is important to focus on making the libre software ecosystem sustainable. This has historically [not been the case](https://www.fordfoundation.org/media/2976/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure.pdf). It feels important to contextualise this position. In the words of [LURK](https://lurk.org):

> Big tech and an abusive misunderstanding of free and open source software practices have led us to believe that software production, server maintenance and on-line services should be free as in gratis. However there is no such things as a free lunch and software does not exist in a vacuum. If we want sustainable alternatives and a diverse cultural sector, these alternatives and the humans behind them, need to be supported.

And a short excerpt from [Seven Theses On The Fediverse and The Becoming Of FLOSS](https://archive.transmediale.de/content/seven-theses-on-the-fediverse-and-the-becoming-of-floss):

> Without substantial funding for ongoing development and maintenance, these projects will remain contingent upon the exploitation of the free labor of well-meaning individuals, or subject to the whims of people making time for their FLOSS hobby.

We want to build a flourishing, inclusive, accessible project and paying people for their work (not just writing source code, but other forms of organising and care work too!) has a role to play in that. We think that making it possible to compensate contributors for working on Co-op Cloud is a way to get involved with self-organising sustainability from the start.

We haven't worked this all out. We've opened up an [Open Collective account](https://opencollective/coop-cloud) and we're running this as an "invite only mode" approach. **If you want to make a contribution to Co-op Cloud and you'd like to be compensated, please [come and chat to us first](/intro/contact/).**