Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
Richard Hainsworth wrote: Consider the position you put me, or another sponsor, in. I want to endorse everything Richard then went on to say. I have already contacted Uri and expressed my dismay at his entirely inappropriate interjection of an advertisement for our Perl College event into this discussion about funding for critical Perl projects and personnel. And I am especially upset that anyone might ever feel pressured to be involved in any project or sponsorship just because my name and reputation were invoked on its behalf. It's critical that we find ways to support those in the Perl community who are either building our future or (just as importantly) maintaining our present. But injecting UCE into such discussions does not further that goal, and I am sincerely sorry that it was done in my name. Damian
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
I think the crucial point to pick up on is something that chromatic has pointed out very well in any number of use.perl journal postings over the past year. That is, Perl 6's creation is dependent on how much time people put into it, and how many people put in time. The volunteer effort to date has been exemplary and inspirational. When you think about the universe of possible things intelligent and energetic people could be doing with their time, that so many have put so much into Perl 6 is a tribute both to the worthiness of the Perl 6 project and to the fundamental goodness of the volunteers. Funding is the piece of the puzzle that allows us to buttress and enhance the contributions of volunteers. Someone who can contribute 5 hours a week to p6 development could possibly contribute 30 hours a week if they took on a reduced workload at their day job. But that doesn't mean their responsibilities just disappear: a mortgage / rent to pay, insurance policies need maintaining, kids have to be clothed and educated, and everyone has a powerful need to eat. Funding makes it possible to bridge this gap. To Richard's point, a systematic development plan is a tool that can be helpful in acquiring funding. The plan is meant to acquire funding, and the funding is meant to be applied against the plan to make it come to pass. Done correctly, it's a virtuous circle that Gets Things Done. I completely agree with chromatic that a plan without resources put against it is neutered. I don't want a plan that has calendar dates on it. I want a plan that has major pieces of work and their dependencies on each other reflected (i.e. a GANTT chart) and a sense of the man-months of required effort for each work-piece. At that point, the implementation volunteers have done their job. It then becomes the responsibility of the funding-acquisition volunteers to take the plan and with it seek out funding to make the man-months happen. Cheers, - Richard PS I often think of it like this: Distance = velocity x Time (D = v x T) When people ask for a release date for Perl 6, what they're implicitly saying is, T = D / v, solve for T chromatic has been the #1 expositor that v is unknown, and therefore we can't solve for T. In this he is quite correct. (And when we think hard about it, D can be sometimes hazy as well. If Perl 6 had been implemented 100 times before we'd know D pretty well. But we're still figuring out what D is.) The idea behind a plan is to firm up D, at least to a certain minimum acceptible level, and to allow for what if scenario planning to be played with potential funding sources. (i.e. if you can give us this much v, we'll have a decent shot of T happening in the 8-16 month timeframe afterwards, etc.) On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 2:36 PM, chromatic [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tuesday 25 March 2008 10:50:15 Richard Hainsworth wrote: What the perl6 language needs now is a systematic development plan, with broad aims and clear goals that will lead to good quality software and to the tools to enable ordinary programmers to use perl6 for a variety of tasks. Richard Dice mentioned that I should elaborate, lest it sound like I'm trying to lecture Richard Hainsworth (not my intent, and I apologize for doing so). It's important to keep in mind the degree to which one or two volunteers going on vacation can slow the progress of Rakudo (for a recent example) or to which one or volunteers putting in a few extra hours of visible work can improve the progress of Parrot (for a slightly less recent example). A plan that includes some degree of funding will help Perl 6 arrive much sooner. Previous plans glossed over this part, which is one reason they didn't work out in the long term. I just want to make sure that any discussion of a plan acknowledges that there's a fixed amount of work to go and an unknown amount of available resources to implement the plan. -- c
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
Hi James, Your comment suggest you have a particular perspective or point of view. Without providing a some context I'm afraid I'm going to find some of your comments confusing. * just release perl 6 now and move on This is one of those confusing comments. There isn't a single p6 implementation attempt which is feature complete. How can it be released? What do you mean by move on? * do not hire 40 year olds with responsibilities, convince the young to spend their time for free ... isn't that what one is supposed to do after the age of 40 ? Even if I agreed with you, who would be the project manager? Who would be the technical architect? There are 21 year old diamonds-in-the-rough, but someone needs to craft them. Unless you're suggesting that open source is its own magic pixie dust and gifted youngsters will just materialize out of nowhere and solve all our problems? 'pugs' was a good rough-cut at this theory, but it was also a demonstration that the youngsters (eventually) need jobs and health care and whatnot too. And that can leave the project in the lurch. (also, call this A) * use all funds to promote its usage, not fund its development I have nothing at all against funds being spent on promoting usage. Rather, more broadly, I have nothing against doing things to promote usage, where funds being spent is one good possibility. Your statement of do all of X, none of Y suggests you have done some kind of cost-benefit analysis, linear programming, etc. that I don't understand. (also, call this B) * look at successful OS orgs like mozilla and apache (different to each other yes) and copy their techniques This seems at odds with A and B. Mozilla funds plenty of developers directly. Apache is slightly more indirect in their efforts but it co-ordinates the activities of programmers that have been hired directly by participating corporations. By the way, I spent plenty of time talking with Mozilla, Apache, Eclipse, and others to try to figure out what they do and what ideas I can bring back from them to Perl's world. * promote its usage past perl's borders, e.g. perl should be an ingredient not a closed garden at some Perl conference ... Again, you seem to have some perspective that Perl is only a closed garden. I recently attended a technology/finance hybrid conference and the 3 ingredient technologies that were talked about at the conference were #3 - SQL, #2 - XML and #1 - Perl. No others even came up. a systematic plan past these points will then be possible. What all of myself, chromatic and Richard Hainsworth seem to appreciate is that a plan without resources to back it up is almost guaranteed to be ineffective. Even more than that, we have an appreciation that planning itself requires resources. (Or should the mythic 21 year olds with free time be crafting Perl's strategic plans and cross-organization promotional activities too?) This is what we're working on. Cheers, - Richard
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
can I add a few unsolicited ruminations from a lurker; * just release perl 6 now and move on * do not hire 40 year olds with responsibilities, convince the young to spend their time for free ... isn't that what one is supposed to do after the age of 40 ? * use all funds to promote its usage, not fund its development * promote its usage past perl's borders, e.g. perl should be an ingredient not a closed garden at some Perl conference ... * look at successful OS orgs like mozilla and apache (different to each other yes) and copy their techniques a systematic plan past these points will then be possible. cheers, Jim Fuller
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 7:44 PM, Richard Dice [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What all of myself, chromatic and Richard Hainsworth seem to appreciate is that a plan without resources to back it up is almost guaranteed to be ineffective. Even more than that, we have an appreciation that planning I always relate OS development to how the genetic algorithm works; e.g. a successful OS development typically works quite happily even without a lot of upfrontplanning (though major 'weeding' can be required) or a major spot on the horizon to navigate towards. its ruthless in what dies (projects failing) and what succeeds however it does need a few self organizing principles; a large gene pool, heterogeneity and the ability to mutate to respond to short duration events, oh ya and the ability to mate right we can leave the last one off ;) I do not pretend to know how this specifically relates to getting 'critical mass' of development on perl6 to be feature complete ... my comments were a bit casual; I do not think that its right to release perl6 for the language, but it might be 'right' to do for language adoption no doubt cathedral / bazaar forces are in effect. cheers ,Jim Fuller
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 08:26:35PM +0100, James Fuller wrote: : oh ya and the ability to mate right we can : leave the last one off ;) No we can't. That is *precisely* what this whole business of derivable grammars is about, and it came about because you couldn't mate two source filters in Perl 5 and end up with viable offspring. Biology has more or less solved this by making point mutations *point* mutations. Source filters are more like a blast of gamma rays to the entire genome. Larry
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Wednesday 26 March 2008 11:08:15 James Fuller wrote: can I add a few unsolicited ruminations from a lurker; * just release perl 6 now and move on To what extent? Larry just released Perl 5 some 13 and a half years ago, and there've been a few patches applied to it in the past 24 hours. (I wrote one of them.) If we released the current most-complete version of Perl 6 right now, we'd release code that's difficult to install, requires a difficult-to-install version of GHC, is out of date with regard to several tests and portions of the design, and is staggeringly slow. I can imagine that not everyone in the world would find that endearing. How many of them would stick around for Perl 6.01, let alone Perl 6.10? * do not hire 40 year olds with responsibilities, convince the young to spend their time for free ... isn't that what one is supposed to do after the age of 40 ? I'm under 40, and I've spent five years of my life working on this for free. I don't understand this idea; where does work magically happen? * use all funds to promote its usage, not fund its development See point one. * look at successful OS orgs like mozilla and apache (different to each other yes) and copy their techniques Their business plans started with: 1) start with corporate backing and paid developers We're approximately eight years late for that. a systematic plan past these points will then be possible. I think you're assuming a lot of MAGIC HAPPENS HERE points. -- c
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Wednesday 26 March 2008 12:26:35 James Fuller wrote: I do not think that its right to release perl6 for the language, but it might be 'right' to do for language adoption no doubt cathedral / bazaar forces are in effect. I don't follow this; can you elaborate? -- c
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
RH == Richard Hainsworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: RH No one likes bureacracy. But I feel much happier about handing over RH money, or persuading someone else to hand over money, to a group of RH people with established procedures and collective responsibility, than RH to some enthusiatic individual who promises the earth and whose the RH world-number-one genius at code writing, but might also go and blow RH the whole lot on girls and booze cos his cat died. would you think damian has enough anti-flake genome in him to qualify for a more direct donation? :) if you do and agree that damian is worth supporting, i have an opportunity to propose. i am producing the perl college which is a set of classes taught by damian in boston, aimed at junior perl hackers. the college is sponsored by companies looking to hire intermediate level perl developers. your company or you as an individual, can be a sponsor which will support damian to come to the states for this set of classes and also for the conferences (which he missed last year because his funding came up short). if you are interested contact me off list at uri AT perlhunter.com. for more info on the perl college go to: http://perlhunter.com/college.html thanx, uri, dean of the perl college. -- Uri Guttman -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sysarch.com -- - Perl Code Review , Architecture, Development, Training, Support -- - Free Perl Training --- http://perlhunter.com/college.html - - Gourmet Hot Cocoa Mix http://bestfriendscocoa.com -
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
Uri, Consider the position you put me, or another sponsor, in. You mention a specific person, someone who is highly respected and extremely talented. You ask if I consider this person to be as flaky as a character that was a figment of my imagination, and if I say 'no he is not so flaky', then the implication is I will provide sponsorship. And if I demur, you might say 'put up or shut up' and I feel under pressure to do something I might not really want to. But even if I say 'sure, how much?' to Damian Conway, what do I say to another request for a Klingon of altogether unknown character? And suppose I cant manage the whole amount, but I can pay a part, who makes up the rest? And suppose I pay my money, but the trip is cancelled, who pays me back? And suppose I want to sponsor the development of perl6 over parrot, leaving training to someone else? Can I respond easily to your direct request without implying some slur on Damian? The whole point about having an institutional channel for sponsorship is to remove the need for personal judgments, for sponsors to specify exactly how their money should be used, for the procedures to be in place to cover shortfalls from a central budget, for rules to be clear about what happens to money that is in excess of earmarked programmes, and for there to be clarity in all possible grey areas that happen in life. What the perl6 language needs now is a systematic development plan, with broad aims and clear goals that will lead to good quality software and to the tools to enable ordinary programmers to use perl6 for a variety of tasks. More than that it needs the excitement that comes when there is tangible progress (just look what has happened to parrot as a result of the funding arranged via The Perl Foundation). Ad hoc, piecemeal processes will yield ad hoc piecemeal results. I have absolutely no issues with the excellent series of courses you run, especially if they are taught by Damian. But where do they fit into the general scheme of things? Are they essential to the development of perl6, or do they only benefit a small group of regional companies. Do they benefit me (bear in mind that the company I run is based in Moscow, Russia)? Sorry. You asked questions I am not prepared to answer because the questions were posed in a manner that prevents me from answering. Do this through The Perl Foundation and you will get a clear answer. Richard Hainsworth Uri Guttman wrote: RH == Richard Hainsworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: RH No one likes bureacracy. But I feel much happier about handing over RH money, or persuading someone else to hand over money, to a group of RH people with established procedures and collective responsibility, than RH to some enthusiatic individual who promises the earth and whose the RH world-number-one genius at code writing, but might also go and blow RH the whole lot on girls and booze cos his cat died. would you think damian has enough anti-flake genome in him to qualify for a more direct donation? :) if you do and agree that damian is worth supporting, i have an opportunity to propose. i am producing the perl college which is a set of classes taught by damian in boston, aimed at junior perl hackers. the college is sponsored by companies looking to hire intermediate level perl developers. your company or you as an individual, can be a sponsor which will support damian to come to the states for this set of classes and also for the conferences (which he missed last year because his funding came up short). if you are interested contact me off list at uri AT perlhunter.com. for more info on the perl college go to: http://perlhunter.com/college.html thanx, uri, dean of the perl college.
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Tuesday 25 March 2008 10:50:15 Richard Hainsworth wrote: What the perl6 language needs now is a systematic development plan, with broad aims and clear goals that will lead to good quality software and to the tools to enable ordinary programmers to use perl6 for a variety of tasks. Perl 6 has had several plans over the past eight years. What Perl 6 hasn't had in quite a while is paid developer time. Plans are good and plans are fine, but I've never seen a plan do the red-green-refactor loop once, let alone the few million times it'll take to finish Perl 6.0. -- c
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
RH == Richard Hainsworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: RH Consider the position you put me, or another sponsor, in. You mention RH a specific person, someone who is highly respected and extremely RH talented. You ask if I consider this person to be as flaky as a RH character that was a figment of my imagination, and if I say 'no he is RH not so flaky', then the implication is I will provide sponsorship. And RH if I demur, you might say 'put up or shut up' and I feel under RH pressure to do something I might not really want to. i am sorry if i caused you any concern or confusion. i didn't mean to put you under any pressure in any way. my goal was to inform anyone here about another way to help with supporting perl6 (and perl5 cpan) developers, in particular damian. as for damian being flaky or not, that is a great question! :). RH The whole point about having an institutional channel for sponsorship RH is to remove the need for personal judgments, for sponsors to specify RH exactly how their money should be used, for the procedures to be in RH place to cover shortfalls from a central budget, for rules to be clear RH about what happens to money that is in excess of earmarked programmes, RH and for there to be clarity in all possible grey areas that happen in RH life. i agree about needing better institutional channels for sponsorship. i am just offering a small side channel for those who would like to support damian. RH I have absolutely no issues with the excellent series of courses RH you run, especially if they are taught by Damian. But where do RH they fit into the general scheme of things? Are they essential to RH the development of perl6, or do they only benefit a small group of RH regional companies. Do they benefit me (bear in mind that the RH company I run is based in Moscow, Russia)? i didn't aim this at companies in moscow. you had the last best email on this thread which inspired me to respond. note that i replied to the lists as well directly to you. it was a purely informational post for the perl 6 community. thanx, uri -- Uri Guttman -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sysarch.com -- - Perl Code Review , Architecture, Development, Training, Support -- - Free Perl Training --- http://perlhunter.com/college.html - - Gourmet Hot Cocoa Mix http://bestfriendscocoa.com -
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Tuesday 25 March 2008 10:50:15 Richard Hainsworth wrote: What the perl6 language needs now is a systematic development plan, with broad aims and clear goals that will lead to good quality software and to the tools to enable ordinary programmers to use perl6 for a variety of tasks. Richard Dice mentioned that I should elaborate, lest it sound like I'm trying to lecture Richard Hainsworth (not my intent, and I apologize for doing so). It's important to keep in mind the degree to which one or two volunteers going on vacation can slow the progress of Rakudo (for a recent example) or to which one or volunteers putting in a few extra hours of visible work can improve the progress of Parrot (for a slightly less recent example). A plan that includes some degree of funding will help Perl 6 arrive much sooner. Previous plans glossed over this part, which is one reason they didn't work out in the long term. I just want to make sure that any discussion of a plan acknowledges that there's a fixed amount of work to go and an unknown amount of available resources to implement the plan. -- c
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Ovid wrote: How else should we be advertising this? These mailing lists might be a good place. Basically, places where the work in question is done also seem like good places to advertise. -dave /*=== VegGuide.Orgwww.BookIRead.com Your guide to all that's veg. My book blog ===*/
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 7:38 PM, Dave Rolsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 21 Feb 2008, Joshua Gatcomb wrote: I am mostly ignoring the rest of what others have said in this thread because I think it is detracting from your intention of getting money to people to work more. Here is one thing that has frustrated me about TPF. They are a non-profit organization. Yeah, kind of suprising that would be the frustrating thing. The issue is that they can't take money from Bob to give to Sue to work on Bob's widget. This is an extreme oversimplification but in general, they have to abide by the rules that allow them to keep their non-profit status. Where am I going with this? This doesn't make any sense to me. There's nothing about being a nonprofit that prevents TPF from accepting donations targeted to a specific program. There's a bit of accounting overhead to make it happen, but it's perfectly legal and in keeping with TPF's 501c3 status and its mission. I don't know but I think I was told at least once that TPF cannot handle donations targeted to a specific person. That might of course be different then targeting at specific program, I am not familiar what 501c3 means. Personally - and there might be few others - I'd be much more comfortable to give money to a specific target or person than to a general pool. What I was hoping for a long time is to be able to give a modest amount on a monthly basis. Currently AFAIK TPF can only accept stand alone payments. IMHO many people in the community would be ready to give 5-10-20 USD/month but it would be much harder to get them give 100 or 200 USD once a year. How hard would it be to enable (Paypal?) recurring monthly payments to TPF? How hard would it be to allow people to target their money to a specific project/person? TPF can then still focus on raising money from corporations. Gabor -- Gabor Szabo http://www.szabgab.com/
RE: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
From: Gabor Szabo [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 2:04 PM On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 7:38 PM, Dave Rolsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 21 Feb 2008, Joshua Gatcomb wrote: I am mostly ignoring the rest of what others have said in this thread because I think it is detracting from your intention of getting money to people to work more. Here is one thing that has frustrated me about TPF. They are a non-profit organization. Yeah, kind of suprising that would be the frustrating thing. The issue is that they can't take money from Bob to give to Sue to work on Bob's widget. This is an extreme oversimplification but in general, they have to abide by the rules that allow them to keep their non-profit status. Where am I going with this? This doesn't make any sense to me. There's nothing about being a nonprofit that prevents TPF from accepting donations targeted to a specific program. There's a bit of accounting overhead to make it happen, but it's perfectly legal and in keeping with TPF's 501c3 status and its mission. I don't know but I think I was told at least once that TPF cannot handle donations targeted to a specific person. That might of course be different then targeting at specific program, I am not familiar what 501c3 means. Personally - and there might be few others - I'd be much more comfortable to give money to a specific target or person than to a general pool. What I was hoping for a long time is to be able to give a modest amount on a monthly basis. Currently AFAIK TPF can only accept stand alone payments. IMHO many people in the community would be ready to give 5-10-20 USD/month but it would be much harder to get them give 100 or 200 USD once a year. How hard would it be to enable (Paypal?) recurring monthly payments to TPF? How hard would it be to allow people to target their money to a specific project/person? TPF can then still focus on raising money from corporations. Good ideas/questions. TIMTOWTDI. A couple of quick comments (for everyone): (1) Richard Dice (TPF) recently left for a week of $work travel and might not be able to reply for a while, so please be patient and considerate. (2) Please direct all follow-ups to just the perl6-users list. My apologies to others with likewise-cluttered in-boxes for neglecting to request this in my initial post. Meanwhile, thanks for everyone's suggestions. I'm sure that we'll eventually see some major improvements, one way or another. Best regards, Conrad Schneiker www.AthenaLab.com http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6 - Official Perl 6 Wiki http://www.perlfoundation.org/parrot - Official Parrot Wiki
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
LW == Larry Wall [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: LW By the way, it's possible that I might deserve a little more money, LW because *my* cat died last year, and as near as I can tell, I didn't LW spend any money on girls and booze because of it... :) i will donate to get larry a new cat. in fact we can probably find a free stray or extra kitten somewhere near him. will this make perl 6 happen before christmas? :-) uri -- Uri Guttman -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sysarch.com -- - Perl Architecture, Development, Training, Support, Code Review -- --- Search or Offer Perl Jobs - http://jobs.perl.org - - Gourmet Hot Cocoa Mix http://bestfriendscocoa.com -
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
In my $life, I raise money from sponsors. It is not difficult to spend money, once you have it. It is not difficult to raise money, once you know how to spend it wisely. What's difficult is putting the two together. Some donors know what to contribute to - they choose specific projects and people. Some donors want to help achieve a general aim - they give to a foundation that will wisely spend the money for them (eg. Warren Buffet giving gazillions to Bill Gate's foundation). Any sponsorship program should enable both ear-marked and general contributions (and I am certain if the paper-work's done right, this can be achieved within TPF). To be frank, the ONLY reasonable systematic way of managing a sponsorship process is to have a Foundation, and the foundation should have people who are trusted, who already have contributed to the process, and who are prepared to report back on how the money has been spent. The Perl Foundation meets these criteria. If you spend time on administration, you are using resources, in just the same way as programmers hacking on the code. So if the officers of the Foundation are paid for their efforts, that is acceptible so long as the payments are commensurate with resources spent in other directions. It is not a mathematical formula, its a question of balance and fairness and transparency. No one likes bureacracy. But I feel much happier about handing over money, or persuading someone else to hand over money, to a group of people with established procedures and collective responsibility, than to some enthusiatic individual who promises the earth and whose the world-number-one genius at code writing, but might also go and blow the whole lot on girls and booze cos his cat died. Whilst debating issues like parrot vs pugs, or single-track vs parellel track development, can be quite interesting, especially if it induces Larry to compare straight lines to mountains and railroads, it is likely to be more useful to have suggestions like chromatic's - 1month of dedicated work for $5000. How about adding a page to one of the web sites where offers of help, time and expense, can be made? The micro-grants idea is great. What I have seen of the results and reporting is fine. More grants, more people, and more results are needed. How about everyone reading this thread thinking about a micro-project they can do. Finally, there needs to be recognition for the sponsors, both those that donate their talent resources such as volunteer designer, implementors, hackers, and those that donate just cash. How about a mandatory section of text at the top of each core and sponsored module that lists the sponsors? Just like license text. That way all contributors are recognised when/if perl6 becomes the predominant programming environment, those names become distributed around the world.
RE: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Thursday 21 February 2008 06:25:42 Joshua Gatcomb wrote: On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 4:23 PM, chromatic [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I could take a month's sabbatical from my day job for $5000 without losing insurance coverage or other benefits. That's slightly more than Audrey's $100/day, I know, but it's substantially less than my consulting rate and somewhat less than my salary too. I could probably make 100 - 150 high-quality commits to Parrot in that 30 day period. Perhaps more. I'm probably not the only Parrot/Perl 6 hacker in this situation. I was beginning to wonder if my post to the thread had gotten eaten. Thanks for replying. I probably didn't do a good job of tying the two portions of my reply together, but if I were to go to the donation page and I saw Project: Allow chromatic for 1 month to work exclusively on parrot Deliverables (if applicable): 100 - 150 high quality commits Required: $5000 Current: $0 I would be very inclined to make a donation. In fact, if you can find 9 other people willing to do so - I will cut a check for $500 any time you are ready. That's besides the point. Not to me it isn't. :-) Count me in as person #1 of the 9 others. I don't believe just getting more money is the solution. I think we need to do a number of things: 1. Identify people, like you, who are in a position to trade time for money and the projects they will work on 2. Allow people to choose where their money will go (if that's what they want to do) 3. Do it in a way that causes the least amount of fighting Good ideas. Best regards, Conrad Schneiker www.AthenaLab.com http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6 Official Perl 6 Wiki http://www.perlfoundation.org/parrot Official Parrot Wiki
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
Me too. $500. That's 3*500, so far. Can I do this through the Perl Foundation as an earmark? Conrad Schneiker wrote: On Thursday 21 February 2008 06:25:42 Joshua Gatcomb wrote: On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 4:23 PM, chromatic [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I could take a month's sabbatical from my day job for $5000 without losing insurance coverage or other benefits. That's slightly more than Audrey's $100/day, I know, but it's substantially less than my consulting rate and somewhat less than my salary too. I could probably make 100 - 150 high-quality commits to Parrot in that 30 day period. Perhaps more. I'm probably not the only Parrot/Perl 6 hacker in this situation. I was beginning to wonder if my post to the thread had gotten eaten. Thanks for replying. I probably didn't do a good job of tying the two portions of my reply together, but if I were to go to the donation page and I saw Project: Allow chromatic for 1 month to work exclusively on parrot Deliverables (if applicable): 100 - 150 high quality commits Required: $5000 Current: $0 I would be very inclined to make a donation. In fact, if you can find 9 other people willing to do so - I will cut a check for $500 any time you are ready. That's besides the point. Not to me it isn't. :-) Count me in as person #1 of the 9 others. I don't believe just getting more money is the solution. I think we need to do a number of things: 1. Identify people, like you, who are in a position to trade time for money and the projects they will work on 2. Allow people to choose where their money will go (if that's what they want to do) 3. Do it in a way that causes the least amount of fighting Good ideas. Best regards, Conrad Schneiker www.AthenaLab.com http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6 — Official Perl 6 Wiki http://www.perlfoundation.org/parrot — Official Parrot Wiki
RE: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 1:24 AM Whilst debating issues like parrot vs pugs, or single-track vs parellel track development, can be quite interesting, especially if it induces Larry to compare straight lines to mountains and railroads, it is likely to be more useful to have suggestions like chromatic's - 1month of dedicated work for $5000. How about adding a page to one of the web sites where offers of help, time and expense, can be made? Very good idea. ++ Any takers? I would, but my internet connectivity is severely constrained atm. That will change from April 15th on, if noone made it until then, I'll do. But it would be shame to wait that long ;-) We have the Perl 6 wiki. That might be a good way to set up a preliminary version. I could help out this weekend, but right now I've got to catch up on sleep and $work. Best regards, Conrad Schneiker www.AthenaLab.com http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6 Official Perl 6 Wiki http://www.perlfoundation.org/parrot Official Parrot Wiki
RE: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
From: Geoffrey Broadwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 6:20 PM On Thu, 2008-02-21 at 18:45 -0500, Joshua Gatcomb wrote: On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 4:23 PM, chromatic [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2. Allow people to choose where their money will go (if that's what they want to do) Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that this can't be done directly because of rules surrounding TPF's non-profit status. Someone else pointed out the problems with TPF officers benefitting directly from the donations, even though some of the current and former TPF officers would be great candidates for support. Which made me think ... wasn't this why Mozilla created a corporation? Personally, I think it's ridiculous that a non-profit can't be an umbrella facilitator for directed donations (if that is in fact the case). But if that is really the way of things, can TPF go the Mozilla route to break the logjam? Or could we even just go to that Mozilla corporation? Given that Mozilla is a Perl 6 supporter, would they be willing to handle earmarked Perl 6 donations in lieu of TPF (for a limited time, say 2 years)? Their major name recognition as a solid entity could be very helpful in attracting major donations prior to Perl 6's first production release. Best regards, Conrad Schneiker www.AthenaLab.com http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6 Official Perl 6 Wiki http://www.perlfoundation.org/parrot Official Parrot Wiki
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 11:03:03AM +0300, Richard Hainsworth wrote: No one likes bureacracy. But I feel much happier about handing over money, or persuading someone else to hand over money, to a group of people with established procedures and collective responsibility, than to some enthusiatic individual who promises the earth and whose the world-number-one genius at code writing, but might also go and blow the whole lot on girls and booze cos his cat died. Let me make a clear statement here. I have no trouble with the committee making its decisions--that's what the committee is obliged to do. The committee is *not* obliged to feel secure about that; (nor do I feel obliged to allow them to feel secure about that ;) nevertheless, the committee is also not obliged to demonstrate its insecurity by heaping scorn upon such persons of indeterminate feline attachment while turning them down. A simple no would suffice without the we-had-to-say-this-because-you-suck bits. By the way, it's possible that I might deserve a little more money, because *my* cat died last year, and as near as I can tell, I didn't spend any money on girls and booze because of it... :) Larry
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
OOOWWW my tail is burnt!!! But I wasnt on the committee... promise. Sorry about the cat... So lets get some money into this Foundation, so that, perhaps, Larry might possibly, if he deserves, get a little more money. Richard Larry Wall wrote: On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 11:03:03AM +0300, Richard Hainsworth wrote: No one likes bureacracy. But I feel much happier about handing over money, or persuading someone else to hand over money, to a group of people with established procedures and collective responsibility, than to some enthusiatic individual who promises the earth and whose the world-number-one genius at code writing, but might also go and blow the whole lot on girls and booze cos his cat died. Let me make a clear statement here. I have no trouble with the committee making its decisions--that's what the committee is obliged to do. The committee is *not* obliged to feel secure about that; (nor do I feel obliged to allow them to feel secure about that ;) nevertheless, the committee is also not obliged to demonstrate its insecurity by heaping scorn upon such persons of indeterminate feline attachment while turning them down. A simple no would suffice without the we-had-to-say-this-because-you-suck bits. By the way, it's possible that I might deserve a little more money, because *my* cat died last year, and as near as I can tell, I didn't spend any money on girls and booze because of it... :) Larry
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
In article !!AAAYAJmSy7DjO29Fg/NooSGjnaXCgAAAEEc+mhI1TL9CiDgj [EMAIL PROTECTED], Conrad Schneiker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So over the next few months, I'm planning to learn about fundraising, and see what I can accomplish on behalf of Perl 6 development. To that end, I'm soliciting: It's not really a money problem. It's finding someone to give the money to. I've been trying to force money on some people to work on Perl 6, but they don't wants it, for whatever reason. Part of that is that TPF officers aren't supposed to get grant money. And, before you think about raising money, check how much money TPF actually has. There is still half of the NLNet's $70k to be distributed. for instance. It's not a fundraising problem. Find a person who would take money before you spend too much time finding the money. Targeted fundraising is more effective anyway :) That's why I raised the debate on whom to aid. I've seen that Daniel Ruoso applied for a grant for his smop project, basically a virtual machine and fast backend for kp6, and perhaps other implementations. TPF decided not to invest into yet another implementation. So I learn that they do have money, and don't seem to finde worthy targets to spend it. On the other hand there are applications that I do consider worthwhile. That's what made me come to the conclusion that it's really The Parrot Foundation. But from chromatic's response I learned that there is good way to support parrot - but financing him for month. So where is the problem? Why doesn't the money flow one way or another? Does TPF want to sponsor more Perl 5 related development? Or was that offer, $5k for 1 month full time hacking, not known before? Moritz
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
Hi everyone, Guess it's time for me to finally join the discussion. :-) I've been paying attention to this thread since it started. Which made me think ... wasn't this why Mozilla created a corporation? I believe one can find online write-ups from the people involved with the decision to create MoCo as to why they felt this was a good idea. I read them once years ago. I would need to re-read to remind myself what those reasons were. Or could we even just go to that Mozilla corporation? Given that Mozilla is a Perl 6 supporter, would they be willing to handle earmarked Perl 6 donations in lieu of TPF (for a limited time, say 2 years)? One of the stated goals and desired outcomes of the MoFo joint sponsorship with TPF of Patrick Michaud's work was to assist TPF to do more (and more effective) fundraising for p6. MoFo's goals in p6 are served by supporting TPF. I strongly doubt that they would accept donations for p6 and distribute them themselves directly. (I'm in touch with the MoFo executive director on a weekly basis. I've got a pretty good idea of where he's at in his thinking.) Their major name recognition as a solid entity could be very helpful in attracting major donations prior to Perl 6's first production release. Yes, they appreciate that, which is why they donated to TPF. They wanted to endorse TPF and p6 to make it easier for others to do so. Cheers, - Richard Dice (President of TPF)
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Thu, 21 Feb 2008, Geoffrey Broadwell wrote: Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that this can't be done directly because of rules surrounding TPF's non-profit status. Someone else pointed out the problems with TPF officers benefitting directly from the donations, even though some of the current and former TPF officers would be great candidates for support. Which made me think ... wasn't this why Mozilla created a corporation? I doubt that's why. If TPF owned The Perl Corporation (TPC), there'd still be serious conflict of interest issues were TPC to be employing TPF board members or other officers. If anything, this would look even _worse_ than giving them grant money from TPF! The main reason a nonprofit would create a for-profit subsidiary is in order to engage in business activities outside of that nonprofits tax-exempt purpose. That purpose is generally defined by the nonprofit's mission. TPF's missions is: The Perl Foundation is dedicated to the advancement of the Perl programming language through open discussion, collaboration, design, and code. I would guess that MoFo founded MoCo primarily because it wanted to pursue income sources that weren't compatible with MoFo's nonprofit status. I'm guessing that this was primarily the Google deal, and it was determined that the income from Google would be business income, and that it would be so much that if it came directly to MoFo it would compromise MoFo's status as a 501c3 nonprofit. I'd guess that the reasoning behind this is that in the Google deal, Google gets a benefit from the money it pays. It's not a donation. That means it's business income. TPF is not in a similar position at this time. There is no massive source of income available that would not be a donation, to the best of my knowledge. If there were such a source, forming a subsidiary for-profit corporation would be worthwhile. -dave /*=== VegGuide.Orgwww.BookIRead.com Your guide to all that's veg. My book blog ===*/
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Thu, 21 Feb 2008, Joshua Gatcomb wrote: I am mostly ignoring the rest of what others have said in this thread because I think it is detracting from your intention of getting money to people to work more. Here is one thing that has frustrated me about TPF. They are a non-profit organization. Yeah, kind of suprising that would be the frustrating thing. The issue is that they can't take money from Bob to give to Sue to work on Bob's widget. This is an extreme oversimplification but in general, they have to abide by the rules that allow them to keep their non-profit status. Where am I going with this? This doesn't make any sense to me. There's nothing about being a nonprofit that prevents TPF from accepting donations targeted to a specific program. There's a bit of accounting overhead to make it happen, but it's perfectly legal and in keeping with TPF's 501c3 status and its mission. Regardless if we use TPF or not, I think what will get more people to contribute is having some say as to where there money goes. To that end, I suggest having a list of projects currently being funded. A donator can choose which fund their money goes to or can choose a general fund if they don't care. I don't suggest these projects be generic and nebulous either (though they could be for the same reason a general fund is). In other words, there might be a Rakudo fund - generic. There might also be a fund to fix RT # 31415 which is a Rakudo bug. I don't object to the idea of targeted donations, nor of having the community be more involved in that targeting. Sounds groovy. However, I'm not too interested in handing my personal cash over to TPF. I've thought about this for a while, and I'm convinced that for a variety of reasons, TPF should be working on getting most of its funding from corporations. One of the main reasons is simply that there's more bang for the fundraising effort. I can't afford to give TPF $5k, but there's many, many companies using Perl that could easily give $5k or maybe $50k. over where it went. Actually, it has been years since I have contributed to TPF. Now, I just write a check to the individual(s) I want to help. I don't get the tax write off but I know where my money is going. I would never do this, because it's not tax-deductible. Also, if you pay them enough (= $2k, I believe) you'll have to file a 1099 form because they're now a subcontractor for you ;) Personally, I really think it's important that any money funding Perl work go through TPF. It keeps things tax-deductible _and_ it imposes a higher degree of accountability on the process. -dave /*=== VegGuide.Orgwww.BookIRead.com Your guide to all that's veg. My book blog ===*/
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's what made me come to the conclusion that it's really The Parrot Foundation. It's not The Parrot Foundation. It's that NLNet gave a very large targeted grant for Parrot. It's a single big donation that's driving that. I'm working on a detailed history of all TPF grants, but I want to get everything just right before I published it. You'll see that your comment is not really true.
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Fri, 22 Feb 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's what made me come to the conclusion that it's really The Parrot Foundation. As brian mentioned, the NLNet grant is what's driving the Parrot work. AFAIK, there haven't been any Parrot-related grants for a long time besides that one and the MoFo/TPF grant to Patrick. To see other grants given go here - http://www.perlfoundation.org/grants Most of them are Perl 5 related. There are also the micogrants (http://www.perlfoundation.org/microgrants) which are all Perl 6 focused, but only one is Parrot-specific. So where is the problem? Why doesn't the money flow one way or another? Does TPF want to sponsor more Perl 5 related development? Or was that offer, $5k for 1 month full time hacking, not known before? TPF definitely does want to sponsor more on Perl 5. I think this is mostly TPF's communications problem. People don't know about the grants, or don't know what is likely to be accepted, don't know when to apply, etc. -dave /*=== VegGuide.Orgwww.BookIRead.com Your guide to all that's veg. My book blog ===*/
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
I've seen that Daniel Ruoso applied for a grant for his smop project, basically a virtual machine and fast backend for kp6, and perhaps other implementations. TPF decided not to invest into yet another implementation. I appreciate that it is a subtle distinction to make, too subtle to reasonably be guessed at from someone in the Perl community at large, but the Grants Committee does _NOT_ define TPF policy. The GC is autonomous. It is populated by respected members of the community. I think what was demonstrated is that there is a certain amount of lag-time between where the larger Perl community is (which has both p5 and p6 aspects) and the constituents of the GC, who were chosen when p6 wasn't strongly on the radar. The result of this is that there is an impedance mismatch. It will get better with time as membership turns over. In fact, things are changing currently. Cheers, - Richard
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 11:55 PM, Conrad Schneiker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've repeatedly encountered remarks about how much Perl 6 development is constrained by the fairly severe time and energy constraints of its overwhelmingly volunteer development team. Here is something to consider. Unless we can afford to fund an individual full time with enough money for them to pay for their own health coverage and other benefits, the amount of time they are volunteering is already as much as they can afford. In other words, they still have to work a regular job and make time for their family (or whatever substitutes for the real world) and giving them money isn't going to equate to them being able to devote to more time. That isn't to say that these volunteers don't deserve to get compensated but it is unrealistic to expect that money will equate to more time in many of the cases. The statement above does not apply to everyone and those who do freelance and consulting work could likely devote a great deal more time if they would be compensated in some way for their time. I myself, with a few others, made a failed attempt at funding Audrey to work on Pugs full time and her rate was ridiculously low - $100 USD/day. So over the next few months, I'm planning to learn about fundraising, and see what I can accomplish on behalf of Perl 6 development. To that end, I'm soliciting: (1) your suggestions for preparation, (2) your ideas for proposals, and (3) your reasons why the Perl 6 ecosystem (including Parrot and CPAN6) is one of the world's greatest and and most extremely leveraged causes (technically, economically, and socially). I am mostly ignoring the rest of what others have said in this thread because I think it is detracting from your intention of getting money to people to work more. Here is one thing that has frustrated me about TPF. They are a non-profit organization. Yeah, kind of suprising that would be the frustrating thing. The issue is that they can't take money from Bob to give to Sue to work on Bob's widget. This is an extreme oversimplification but in general, they have to abide by the rules that allow them to keep their non-profit status. Where am I going with this? Regardless if we use TPF or not, I think what will get more people to contribute is having some say as to where there money goes. To that end, I suggest having a list of projects currently being funded. A donator can choose which fund their money goes to or can choose a general fund if they don't care. I don't suggest these projects be generic and nebulous either (though they could be for the same reason a general fund is). In other words, there might be a Rakudo fund - generic. There might also be a fund to fix RT # 31415 which is a Rakudo bug. I am not suggesting this is the solution to all the problems. It likely will create more. What I can tell you is the number one thing that has prevented me from donating a lot more money is having little to no control over where it went. Actually, it has been years since I have contributed to TPF. Now, I just write a check to the individual(s) I want to help. I don't get the tax write off but I know where my money is going. In closing, what we don't need is something to fight over. Hopefully you will find the sweet spot - I sure hope you do. Cheers, Joshua Gatcomb a.k.a. Limbic~Region
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
In article !!AAAYAJmSy7DjO29Fg/NooSGjnaXCgAAAEEc+mhI1TL9CiDgj [EMAIL PROTECTED], Conrad Schneiker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So over the next few months, I'm planning to learn about fundraising, and see what I can accomplish on behalf of Perl 6 development. To that end, I'm soliciting: It's not really a money problem. It's finding someone to give the money to. I've been trying to force money on some people to work on Perl 6, but they don't wants it, for whatever reason. Part of that is that TPF officers aren't supposed to get grant money. And, before you think about raising money, check how much money TPF actually has. There is still half of the NLNet's $70k to be distributed. for instance. It's not a fundraising problem. Find a person who would take money before you spend too much time finding the money. Targeted fundraising is more effective anyway :)
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Thursday 21 February 2008 06:25:42 Joshua Gatcomb wrote: Here is something to consider. Unless we can afford to fund an individual full time with enough money for them to pay for their own health coverage and other benefits, the amount of time they are volunteering is already as much as they can afford. In other words, they still have to work a regular job and make time for their family (or whatever substitutes for the real world) and giving them money isn't going to equate to them being able to devote to more time. That isn't to say that these volunteers don't deserve to get compensated but it is unrealistic to expect that money will equate to more time in many of the cases. I could take a month's sabbatical from my day job for $5000 without losing insurance coverage or other benefits. That's slightly more than Audrey's $100/day, I know, but it's substantially less than my consulting rate and somewhat less than my salary too. I could probably make 100 - 150 high-quality commits to Parrot in that 30 day period. Perhaps more. I'm probably not the only Parrot/Perl 6 hacker in this situation. -- c
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 4:23 PM, chromatic [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thursday 21 February 2008 06:25:42 Joshua Gatcomb wrote: I could take a month's sabbatical from my day job for $5000 without losing insurance coverage or other benefits. That's slightly more than Audrey's $100/day, I know, but it's substantially less than my consulting rate and somewhat less than my salary too. I could probably make 100 - 150 high-quality commits to Parrot in that 30 day period. Perhaps more. I'm probably not the only Parrot/Perl 6 hacker in this situation. I was beginning to wonder if my post to the thread had gotten eaten. Thanks for replying. I probably didn't do a good job of tying the two portions of my reply together, but if I were to go to the donation page and I saw Project: Allow chromatic for 1 month to work exclusively on parrot Deliverables (if applicable): 100 - 150 high quality commits Required: $5000 Current: $0 I would be very inclined to make a donation. In fact, if you can find 9 other people willing to do so - I will cut a check for $500 any time you are ready. That's besides the point. I don't believe just getting more money is the solution. I think we need to do a number of things: 1. Identify people, like you, who are in a position to trade time for money and the projects they will work on 2. Allow people to choose where their money will go (if that's what they want to do) 3. Do it in a way that causes the least amount of fighting -- c Cheers, Joshua Gatcomb a.k.a. Limbic~Region
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Thu, 2008-02-21 at 18:45 -0500, Joshua Gatcomb wrote: On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 4:23 PM, chromatic [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2. Allow people to choose where their money will go (if that's what they want to do) Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that this can't be done directly because of rules surrounding TPF's non-profit status. Someone else pointed out the problems with TPF officers benefitting directly from the donations, even though some of the current and former TPF officers would be great candidates for support. Which made me think ... wasn't this why Mozilla created a corporation? Personally, I think it's ridiculous that a non-profit can't be an umbrella facilitator for directed donations (if that is in fact the case). But if that is really the way of things, can TPF go the Mozilla route to break the logjam? Tax incentives are great, but having piles of money sitting around not getting to hackers is clearly not working for us. -'f
Re: Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 8:19 PM, Geoffrey Broadwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that this can't be done directly because of rules surrounding TPF's non-profit status. That someone was me and that's not what I said. I said it isn't as simple as Bob saying I want to pay Sue to work on this widget and having TPF broker the deal. I won't pretend to understand all the intricacies. I said it is frustrating, as someone willing to donate money, that I can't just say give it to Sue please. case). But if that is really the way of things, can TPF go the Mozilla route to break the logjam? Tax incentives are great, but having piles of money sitting around not getting to hackers is clearly not working for us. There are grants that are being awarded. Those grants are getting things done (thanks for the progress on the PDDs Al). I am in no way suggesting that people not donate to TPF. I have in the past and I might in the future. I also help them out in other ways, by writing code for small projects that they need done. I am only suggesting that, for the specific purposes of this thread, going the TPF route may not be the most efficient way to accomplish that goal. Cheers, Joshua Gatcomb a.k.a. Limbic~Region
Perl 6 fundraising and related topics.
During the course of collecting material for the Perl 6 wiki section on Perl 6 articles and presentations (http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6/index.cgi?perl_6_articles_and_presentat ions), I've repeatedly encountered remarks about how much Perl 6 development is constrained by the fairly severe time and energy constraints of its overwhelmingly volunteer development team. So over the next few months, I'm planning to learn about fundraising, and see what I can accomplish on behalf of Perl 6 development. To that end, I'm soliciting: (1) your suggestions for preparation, (2) your ideas for proposals, and (3) your reasons why the Perl 6 ecosystem (including Parrot and CPAN6) is one of the world's greatest and and most extremely leveraged causes (technically, economically, and socially). I'll also put whatever fundraising-oriented material I come up with on the Perl 6 wiki, to help and encourage others along similar lines. Thanks much in advance. Best regards, Conrad Schneiker www.AthenaLab.com http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6 - Official Perl 6 Wiki http://www.perlfoundation.org/parrot - Official Parrot Wiki
