On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:23:26 +0100, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

>>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew P Black <black at cs.pdx.edu> writes:
>
> Andrew> 3. What is your view on fund raising and how any such collected  
> money
> Andrew> should be dealt with?
>
> Andrew> As Randal says, needs must be identified before one can try to  
> raise
> Andrew> money to meet them.  The two main sources will be foundations and
> Andrew> companies.  Money is out there if we can paint a vision of where  
> we
> Andrew> want to go.  Unfortunately, getting the image cleaned up and our
> Andrew> processes organized are not fundable activities.  Developing a
> Andrew> concurrent Smalltalk, for example, might be: I mean a parallel  
> VM and
> Andrew> an enhanced language with real concurrency primitives (I don't  
> count
> Andrew> Semaphores!)
>
> Since you invoked my name (grin), I feel a comment on your comment is
> appropriate.
>
> You say that "getting the image cleaned up" is not a fundable activity.
>
> Here's how to think about fundraising.  Who would benefit from a  
> cleaned-up
> image?  It's not the empty set.
>
> In fact, one group that clearly would benefit from a cleaned up image  
> *and*
> has a commercial interest (therefore, funding) is the ISVs of the  
> world.  Like
> Stonehenge, since we intend on using Squeak for our clients.  If the  
> image
> were cleaned up, our work would be easier, and we could sell Squeak as  
> part of
> the solution more easily into our customer base.
>
> So, you hit the ISVs up for sponsorship towards getting the image  
> cleaned up,
> in exchange for a nice "thanks to our sponsors" page somewhere  
> googleable, and
> it's win-win.  ISVs get a visibility kickback, and you get money to pay  
> people
> to clean up the image.
>
> And it doesn't even need to be monetary.  Suppose Stonehenge paid me for  
> a
> month to spend hunkered down cleaning things up.  If that got mentioned  
> in
> some sponsors page, I'm sure I could get the Stonehenge board to approve  
> that.

That's really a good direction; can we come back to this after 2008's  
board election.

/Klaus

> This is what I mean about funding.  Don't think of it all as looking for
> 501(c)3 charitable individual contributions.  Look for corporate  
> sponsorship
> and in-kind donations.  They're the real source of funding.  We've seen  
> that
> over and over again in the Perl community.  And you *don't* need to be a
> charitable organization for those.  You just need to be organized as a
> non-profit, usually.  Sure, the Conservancy deal is interesting, but
> there's really no need to wait.
>