A funding model for public-interest infrastructure
One People is open source, while servers, GPUs, and development still cost money. This page describes a proposed funding model for community review; it is not a request for payment or a charitable contribution.
Current status: No payments or charitable contributions are being accepted through this website. Any future paid services offered before nonprofit formation would be billed by Expansas, LLC. Payments to Expansas would not be tax-deductible charitable contributions.
The 70 / 20 / 10 Split
The proposed model would split remaining project revenue after infrastructure costs. It has not yet been adopted by a nonprofit board and may change during formation and public review.
Builders
Flows directly to the people who build One People. Developers, compute providers, content creators, community moderators. Weighted by tracked contribution: merged pull requests, compute hours shared, Commons participation, documentation, and community support.
Commons Treasury
A community-directed fund. The Commons votes on how to allocate it: bounties for high-priority features, grants for new contributors, emergency reserves, community events, and initiatives the community decides matter most.
Operations
Keeps One People running. Legal, coordination, DNS and domains, CI/CD pipelines, security audits, and the humans and AI who steward the platform day to day. Capped at 10% — if we don't need it all, the remainder rolls into the Commons Treasury.
What it costs to run One People
Infrastructure costs come off the top before the 70/20/10 split. These are the hard costs of running the network. Published monthly, fully auditable.
| Line Item | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes cluster (compute nodes) | TBD |
| GPU compute (BrainAI inference) | TBD |
| Bandwidth and CDN | TBD |
| Object storage (GCS / S3) | TBD |
| Domains, DNS, TLS certificates | TBD |
| Third-party APIs (auth, email, monitoring) | TBD |
| Total infrastructure | TBD |
These numbers will be filled in and published monthly as we go live. The goal is radical honesty: you should know exactly what it costs to keep the lights on, and you should be able to verify it.
How contributions could be tracked
The proposal would distribute a builder pool based on real, verifiable contributions under rules adopted after review.
Pull requests merged
Tracked via GitHub. Every merged PR to a One People repository counts. Weighted by scope, complexity, and review quality. AI-assisted contributions count — the person who directs the work gets credit.
Hardware contributed
Run a node, share GPU cycles, provide bandwidth. Measured in compute-hours and verified by the network. Your hardware earns OP and a share of the builder pool.
Commons participation
Proposals written, votes cast, discussions that shape direction, documentation improved, newcomers helped. Community health is infrastructure too.
Testing and review
Bug reports, code review, QA testing, security audits. The people who make the work better deserve the same recognition as the people who write it.
Three potential revenue streams
Under the proposal, eligible revenue would enter the same transparent pipeline under published rules.
Planned SuperNova subscriptions
Illustrative pricing for managed cloud AI appears on the planned-pricing page. The software would remain free to self-host; a future subscription would cover hosted infrastructure and service.
Project support
If project support is accepted before nonprofit formation, it would be paid to Expansas, LLC and would not be tax deductible as a charitable contribution. The project intends to publish transparent reporting as the funding system develops.
Expansas commercial services
Enterprise features, managed hosting, and financial tools are commercial services from Expansas, LLC, the current operator of the One People project. Any future allocation to the nonprofit will require formal agreements and board approval.
This model is a proposal, not a decree
CP-001: Adopt the 70/20/10 Revenue Model
Status: Open for discussion
Proposed by: One People project team at Expansas
Summary: If adopted, net revenue after infrastructure costs would be split 70% to builders, 20% to the Commons Treasury, and 10% to One People operations. Reporting details, caps, and surplus treatment remain open for review.
Open questions for the community:
- Is 70/20/10 the right split? Should builders get more? Should the Commons Treasury be larger?
- How should contribution weight be calculated? Equal per-PR, or scaled by complexity?
- Should there be a vesting period for new contributors, or immediate payouts?
- What should the Commons Treasury prioritize first: bounties, grants, or reserves?
- Should the model be reviewed quarterly, annually, or on a different cadence?
This is your project. The funding model should reflect what the community values. Come tell us what you think.
Help shape the funding model
Review the planned tiers, question the assumptions, and join the public discussion before any payment path launches.