[Linux-aus] LCA HOWTO Grant

[Stewart Smith]

On Sat, 2005-06-18 at 11:52 +1000, Kim Oldfield wrote:
> I feel that as a general principal for LA grants which produce produce
> software or documentation, at least some of the payment should be withheld
> until completion of the project.

While it's not current policy of LA to go and fund development of things
(yes, it would be cool, but development time costs big $$, and that's
something we just don't have atm). We are aware of such things though
(and discussed it this past weekend).

> This suggestion is designed to discourage future grant applications from
> people who may (for any reason) not finish the grant work, and make sure
> that all grant work is completed. In other words, make sure LA (and the
> community) gets the full value from grant money.  This is not meant to imply
> that Alison would not finish this HOWTO.

yep, we're aware of such things. not sure it needs solid policy yet
though, still working well on case-by-case basis.

> Such a document will never be truly finished. As each conference evolves,
> and produces updated experiences and statistics the HOWTO should be updated.
> For the purposes of this grant we will need a reasonable definition of
> finished - probably including details from LCA 2005 and earlier only.

true. i would consider finished (for this purpose) to be something like:
- having used the time allocated
- have a document that covers a lot of aspects of running the conf in
various detail (or non-detail) and pointers for more info (if needed -
this could be as little as "go ask $name").

the aim isn't to work anyone to the bone, it's to get a good start that
will help people. If it was easy and simple to organise a conf, there
wouldn't be well paid professional conference organisers :)

> To keep the HOWTO up to date long term we should consider either having a
> maintainer (to collate patches), or making it generally updateable, eg in a
> WIKI, or use one of the many version control systems.

this is something we will have to consider - and may be a good
discussion point for various LCA people. This may become a semi-regular
expense.... i just don't know yet.

> ] Is there any reason to worry that the
> ] people who will probably be contributing to the document will be judging
> ] when it's finished?
> 
> Given that they aren't being paid to produce it, and they are the people who
> can best understand how useful such a HOWTO will be, I don't see it as a
> problem.

same. we also have people looking to run an lca. if it's useful to them,
then it's a success.

-- 
Stewart Smith (stewart at linux.org.au)
Committee Member, Linux Australia
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