[Grants] Grant Application from Ben Minerds for Hosting and services for Software Freedom Day (SFD) and Free Software Melbourne (FSM) meetups

[Kathy Reid]

Hi everyone,

Some quick feedback on this grant request - the high level "what";

- in general I think this is a "no brainer" - Linux Aus exists to 
support this type of open source community. Ben, Les and the team are 
known to be incredibly diligent and hard working, and the ongoing 
vibrancy of Free Software Melbourne is testament to this. This grant 
request has strong values alignment.


Some thoughts on specifics to do with the grant - the "how";

- as a measure of due diligence I think we should put a yearly limit on 
this, or make it subject to a review period (such as "approved for 3 
years, subject to review after that"), and ensure that the forward cost 
is budgeted for in 2021/2022/2023 projections

- I wonder if there are ways for the Big Blue subscriptions to be shared 
across other groups if desired as well - for example, is there a higher 
level subscription which would add more value to the Australian open 
source community?

- From memory we looked into Meetup to see if there was a way for Linux 
Aus to host multiple Meetups on one account, but the cost from memory 
was exorbitant. Is it worth checking to see whether this has changed at 
all in the interim? I think if we look at all the Linux Aus-auspiced 
Meetup groups there will be a few of them.

- As part of this grant I would like to see a "sponsored by Linux Aus" 
message & Linux Aus logo on the event website that links back to Linux Aus.

- And would like to see how Linux Aus can cross-promote this event with 
FSM.


Kind regards,

Kathy Reid


On 23/8/20 12:40 pm, Linux Australia Website wrote:
> Your Email Address: puzzleduck at gmail.com
> Project name: Hosting and services for Software Freedom Day (SFD) and Free Software Melbourne (FSM) meetups
> Aim of the project: Costs of providing hosting for a Free Software based, video conferencing solution to enable the running of SFD 2020 and FSM as online events and additional meetup expenses paid out of pocket by the committee.
> The FSM group have been using the bigbluemeeting.com service over the past few months as a test and the service has proved to be a good fit for our events and has the potential to be scaled up for SFD 2020 in September and then scaled back down for regular meetups.
> Big Blue Meeting were selected as our provider after considering and trialing alternatives. We also appreciate that they support and promote the use of Open Source software in general and the BigBlueButton project in particular.
> We could additionally offer the use of the service to other local meetups looking for FLOSS conference hosting options.
> Estimated cost breakdown of the project: Yearly Big Blue Meeting subscription to allow for regular meetups:
> $720.00 / year
> Once off boost to account in September for increased SFD attendance:
> $50.00
> Proton Mail:
> $150.00 / year
> Meetup:
> $220.00 / year
> Project team details: The FSM Committee is currently made up of Ben Minerds, Michael Verrenkamp, Paul, and Les Kitchen. We have all been participating in the FSM community for five or more years running SFD, workshops and meetups. Some of us are also active in the development community such as helping organise Lambda Conf in addition to presenting and volunteering at Linux Conf Au.
> First Name: Ben
> Last Name: Minerds
> Email Address: puzzleduck at gmail.com
> A statement including a willingness to provide regular project updates on the project: We will happily provide regular updates to the Linux Australia Council on the continued use of the services and in particular on the success of SFD 2020. Additionally we'll be inviting members of the council to attend the event.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grants mailing list
> Grants at lists.linux.org.au
> http://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/grants
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