[Grants] RISC-V hardware for software development - grant application decision

[David M Williams]

Thanks, kindly. I appreciate the Council considering the proposal and providing feedback.

May I make two notes?

1/ I note Russell Coker’s application was rejected also, and I hope very much my own project had no bearing on his outcome. I would feel very bad if I “over-saturated” the RISC-V software interest.

2/ I appreciate the feedback, though I must confess to feeling disappointed in the lack of discussion. I had assumed, erroneously, the grants process would be a dialog with questions/answers, to help refine/strengthen the proposal, and provide Council with answers to its questions. For instance, I have also seen the specific page to which you link but (a) it provides no evidence it is ongoing, and (b) it does not go far enough. It does not include very important free software ELT/ETL tools (that I referred to in my proposal) such as Apache Kafka, AirByte, and others. Without these tools, the whole field of data engineering disappears. Further, my proposal sought to interact with the open-source projects to further the RISC-V support while the paper to which you refer merely notes problems exist.

This is not to criticise nor complain, merely to say questions that are not asked go unanswered; had these been put to me I would have been delighted to work with the Council to ensure a solid proposal that would allow us, together, to ensure a great result for free software in the world.

I had believed the grants process was more collaborative, but knowing that is not the case, I do look forward to working with you again in 2024 to ensure a more robust submission in future.

I’m still committed to furthering the area of database / data tools on RISC-V so I shall keep investigating options and will happily report back if I find some success.

Once again, many thanks for your kind consideration of the project, and for the insightful feedback.

I hope the Council enjoys a tremendous Christmas and New Year period with your friends and family, and I also wish Russell the best with his work, who has been a source of inspiration and information to me.

Regards,
David W



From: Jonathan Woithe <jwoithe at just42.net>
Date: Wednesday, 20 December 2023 at 10:23 pm
To: David M Williams <david at davidmwilliams.com>
Cc: council at linux.org.au <council at linux.org.au>, grants at lists.linux.org.au <grants at lists.linux.org.au>
Subject: RISC-V hardware for software development - grant application decision
Dear David

Your grant application for RISC-V hardware to support FOSS software
development was discussed by the Linux Australia Council at its meeting on
20 Dec 2023.  Unfortunately, your application was not successful.

The grant application was detailed and we appreciated the difficulty in
providing firm quotations in the circumstances.  However, the need for the
proposed work program was unclear to Council due to efforts already underway
by others (see [1] for example).  As a result, the benefits conveyed to the
Free and Open Source community by the proposal were not obvious.  Council
encourages you to make contact when the next Grants Program opens in 2024 to
discuss these aspects of your application prior to submission in order to
maximise your chances of success.

If you have questions, please get in touch with myself or any member of the
Linux Australia Council.

Jonathan Woithe
(on behalf of Linux Australia)

[1] https://riscv.org/blog/2023/08/risc-v-public-beta-platform-release-%C2%B7-database-adaptation-evaluation-on-risc-v-server/
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