Re: [Linux-aus] grant proposal

[Pia Waugh <greebo@pipka.org>]

Hi Paul,

<quote who="Paul Wise">

> I request some funding to get me to Debconf 6 in Mexico. Since I am in
> Perth, getting to debconf and back will be more expensive than the east
> coast. The debconf organisers have some funding (but not as much as they
> wanted), so they asked me to investigate alternative sources to reduce
> the amount of funding I need from them. I determined the full cost would
> be about AUD $3000 return. Any amount would be welcome, I'm not sure how
> much I need, or how much I need to reduce costs by to get the funding
> from debconf organisers. I'll email them to find out.

Please let us know how much you are actually asking for and what the
benefits to the community are. The grants scheme is really about helping
Aussie projects and people to do great things, and there is a bit of a
precedent for not paying money to send people overseas
(http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2004-June/msg00012.html and
you'll have to follow the thread sorry, unfortunately neither of the
applications got funding as there wasn't a good benefit to the Australian
community demonstrated).
 
I think that LA should certainly be encouraging of great projects, but I'm
personally not convinced paying large sums to send people internationally is
the best use of community money. We had a great grant proposal for sending a
Melbourne speaker to Hobart, which was inexpensive with a large local gain
for that community. Grants funds have paid for local hardware, Software
Freedom Day foo, local videos for mass access to speakers, and others (see
http://www.linux.org.au/tasks/index.php?PHPSESSID=9d1f6f8c3d1595209735e6f6010233b4&tasks=&project=1&string=&type=&sev=&due=&dev=&cat=2&status=all&perpage=20
for good examples).

What do others think?

Paul, if you can get partial funding by Debian or another sponsor, perhaps
it would make more sense for LA to help out?

Just my 2c, this isn't the official opinion of LA or anything :)

Cheers,
Pia

-- 
Linux Australia                                         http://linux.org.au/
 
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