[Axiom-developer] summer of code

[daly]

re: mistakes. no problem. the confusion passes.

Despite the fact that Axiom didn't make the list I'm happy
to see that Google is willing to help the open source community
with funding. It's a key issue and this is a good model.

I was previously with City College of New York and will shortly
be at CMU. We had an open source lab at CCNY but there was no
external funding source so it is not really a sustainable model.
The NSF, a traditional fund source, is unwilling to fund open source.

Year long academic grants would be more effective because it
takes a long time to get familiar with projects as complex as Axiom.

If google grants were available to students during the school
year we could certainly have employed more than the 3 students
we could afford. At CCNY I led three open source projects 
(axiom: http://page.axiom-developer.org,
magnus: http://sourceforge.net/projects/magnus, and
doyen: http://daly.axiom-developer.org/doyen).

If there is any interest in helping fund students at university 
open source labs I have people you can contact. There are a few good
students I've met who are quite effective and capable of making
a strong contribution to open source projects. Google could make
a major difference here by helping both students and schools.

In any case, thank you for your efforts.

Tim Daly