[LACTTE] Re: [Linux-aus] ComputerBank NSW Grant Proposal

[Anthony Towns]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2004 at 08:42:46AM +1000, Pia Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-06-16 at 07:27, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > Which you should, of course. At ~5%, it's about equivalent to a $2k (+/-
> > $200) grant now, if they max out the facility by being continuously
> > in debt to us for $10k for the first year and $15k for the two years
> > after that. If they don't do that, it's less than that. If they're in
> > debt to us for more than that over the couple of years, or they don't
> > end up repaying because they go bust, it's more than that obviously.
> No, our donation to Computerbank if you like is the fact that we are
> providing an interest free line of credit to get them on their feet. 

I'm not sure why you began that with a "No," -- it's not disagreeing
with what I said at all.

ComputerBank want an interest free loan, yes -- the question is whether
that's in Linux Australia's interests. The way to work that out is to
determine what will happen if we give them the loan (both the benefits to
Linux in Australia, and the risks that we might incur; both of which you
commented on pretty thoroughly following the above) and what we're giving
up by giving them that loan, which is to say, what the costs are.  If the
benefits are better than the costs -- if we end up with a better world
giving them the loan than we could by not giving them the loan and doing
something else instead -- then we should do it; if not, we shouldn't.

Saying "the cost is the loan" isn't really any more meaningful than saying
"the benefit is the loan" -- the benefit is ComputerBank being able to do
the Work for the Dole scheme, and in so doing be more effective at putting
its donated computers into good homes and so promoting Linux, or so.

As far as I can see, what we're giving up is three years' interest,
which is at most worth around $2k. From what I know of the LA's finances,
I don't think we'd be terribly likely to have any other use for the money;
we certainly don't seem to at the moment, and any new uses we can think
up are likely to be able to be funded from future l.c.a's, or by some
other means anyway. If there are other ideas for spending money that are
already around that are going to be stopped solely because of this loan
then they ought to be factored in too, but I certainly don't know of any.

So the cost is effectively $2k -- which means we're giving up flying
someone to Europe, or flying someone from the US, or buying some nice
new kit for some hax0r somewhere, or maybe a terabyte of bandwidth
charges. Is what we're gaining better than any of those?

> > Is ComputerBank NSW getting better facilities better for LA than sending
> > someone to a conference in Europe, or bringing someone from Europe or the
> > US out here? If we can ensure that we don't end up losing $15k outright,
> > then that's about what the interest costs come to.
> The line of credit for Computerbank is necessary to initiate the Work
> for the Dole scheme in which they process the 5000 machines they've been
> donated and get those machines out to the socio-economically
> disadvantaged, meaning a potential 5000 new developers :)

Presumably that's a "duh, yes, of course it is".

See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Cheers,
a (don't get me started on marginal utility) j

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
Don't assume I speak for anyone but myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

``Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
  for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.''
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