Re: [Fsfe-uk] RFC: Free software project grants

[Marc Eberhard]

On Fri, Oct 17, 2003 at 01:54:48PM +0100, Andrew Savory wrote:
> I don't think we should worry too much about people not applying. There'll
> certainly be less money than applicants.
> 
> I think the more open the process, the better. What do we have to lose?

Good applications. The more people apply, the more choice you have. And this
typically means, the higher the quality of the proposals accepted in the
end.

> I'd like to see a high level of member oversight, especially if it's
> membership money being spent. What do others think?

There are currently no plans to use membership money for this. We are
only talking about the donations from UKFSN. If others like to donate money
for this fund, they're welcome too of course. But I can't see money from our
members to be used for this.

> Indeed. But if there are already three projects providing localisation, it
> would be silly to fund a 4th. If "originality" (ie, first project of this

Yes, sure. This would only make sense, if it is an important software
package and nobody is working on a localised version of it at the moment
anyway.

> type, rather than an 'original' idea) is a criteria, it would make people
> think carefully about what they are doing and check who else is doing it.

Sure.

> Maybe a bid would be "fund this existing project to help them achieve
> milestone X". I'd like to see that sort of thing!

I definitely see this within the range of projects we want to fund.

> We've seen several times that not knowing how we're going to do something
> invariably ends in chaos and confusion. The "elections" are a great
> example of this. Please, hammer out the details in advance.

OK, so we should form the WG first and try to give at least a first draft of
the guidelines.

> Yes, but let's get the guidelines in place in advance.

OK.

Thanks,
Marc
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