[Axiom-developer] Axiom Foundation 1st Annual Report 2004/5

[bill.page1]

Axiom Developers;

The Axiom Foundation was established approximately 1 year ago to
promote the development and maintenance of the open source version
of Axiom through the dispersement of donations to support Axiom-
related projects and through the Award Of Bounties.


Foundation Membership

The original plan

( see http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/AxiomFoundation )

selected three registered Axiom Developers (Bob McElrath,
Camm Maguire and Martin Rubey) as the initial members of the
committee. The idea is that these 3 people will make decisions
for the Foundation for a 1 year renewable term, therfore now
is probably a good time to ask the current members if they wish
to continue their membership and if necessary ask for new
volunteers for this position. My hope is that at most 1 member
might not wish to renew, in which case someone new can step
forward for their turn and in this way we will establish
some continuity of membership. (Please don't everyone say they
want to resign at once! :) Or perhaps the current memebers
are satisfied to continue for one more year?


Foundation Projects

So far, I think it is fair to say that membership in the Axiom
Foundation has not involved any difficult decisions or an undue
amount of time. There was only a very low level of free donations
to Axiom (see report below) and so no decisions about actual
Award of Bounties have been made yet this year. Of course we can
all hope that the level of interest in Axiom continues to rise
and that sooner or later a large donor or a corporate sponsor
will appear to make the work of the Foundation much more
interesting.

This year at least I think we can be proud that Axiom did
receive some serious support from Google through the Summer of
Code project. I think it would be great if we can repeat this
next year in an even bigger way.


Donations Received

Since November 15, 2004 the Axiom Foundation has received
donations from the following sources:

  Donations via PayPal: 3 donors           total: $260.07 USD
  Donations via E-gold: 1 donor            total:   $9.88 USD *
  Donation via personal check: 1 donor     total: $100.00 USD
  Revenue via Axiom Gear sales at CafePress
              3 orders    Gross: $59.95    Net:    $30.00 USD **

                                          Total    $499.87 USD

Notes: * Includes e-gold transaction.
      ** Revenue is 30% to 50% of sales depending on item.

I can provide a detailed list of transactions to Axiom Foundation
members on request.


Conclusions

Well, I think this has been an exciting year for Axiom developers
and Axiom users based on the monthly statistics on the number of
accesses to the Axiom web site, downloads of Axiom and of the
Axiom Book as well as the continued steady exchange of email
messages via the email lists. But unfortunately this excitement
has not yet resulted in a significant level of donations. In
spite of this, I think it might be a good idea for the Foundation
to consider some dispersement of the current balance towards 1 or
more bounties as originally planned.


Summary of Recommendations

1) Open invitations to (re)new Axiom Foundation memberships.

2) Receive proposals for Award of Bounties.


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If anyone has any questions about this report or would like to
comment or make recommendations please ask either via this email
list or in private if you wish.

Sincerely,
Bill Page
(as acting Secretary to the Axiom Foundation)