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

[PFJ]

Hi,

> You could have a two stage process where the above is submitted on one
> or two sides of A4 and then from those submissions a number are
> shortlisted and requests for more information made. This would prevent a
> lot of people doing a lot of unnecessary work.Unless you think work for
> its own sake is good for the soul ;-)

You do hit upon a problem.

Take Scribus (which is being adopted by a number of UK regional
newspapers when their current licences lapse with whatever they're
using).

Franz, Peter and I have been working flat out recently to improve the
application in terms of speed and reliability (and for Peter's case, the
documentation). At the recent Expo, people were amazed at how powerful
it was and the question asked more than anything else was why is it not
a commercial app (the second was would you ever make it a commercial app
and if you did, what licence would it be under). In the past week alone
(Fri - Thurs), Franz and I have put in around 5 hours each *per night*
on development, fixing and the such. All of it (like most other GPL
software) is done in our own time with nothing but a hot coffee mug and
an endless supply of Falco MP3s playing (though sometimes I do listen to
Jennifer Rush - not sure if Franz is over fussed on her though).

While I am used to filling in grant applications for research projects,
I can't see many having the time (or ability) to fill in a grant form
for the AFFS or FSFE, jump through the hoops required and generally lose
valuable time from software development.

Ian's simpler version while it's a lot better (in terms of number of
questions and clarity), still won't make much sense to developers for
three of the four questions (the exception is the current position). In
the case of Scribus, we could answer (in order)

Why is it important : it gives Linux a DTP application on a parr or
better than commercial offerings

Current position : two lead developers, one documentor. Software is at
version 1.1.1 (1.1.2 release may not happen but go directly to 1.1.5).
Progress is very rapid.

(we need a question for what the objectives are, the next question has
been altered)

If you were to be self employed, what would the yearly cost in wages be
for development of your application? Estimate around 42,000 UKP for the
developers and possibly 14,000 for the documentation. These would need
to be converted to the respective currencies and adjusted for taxation
requirements

What's involved and why would funding be good? 

Not actually sure what this means as it's rather vague

As you can see, the wording has to be clear enough so that it takes not
much more than 30 minutes to fill in. It would actually be useful for
someone from FSFE or AFFS to help fill them in as well.

Just thoughts.

TTFN

Paul
-- 
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