The Perl Foundation has awarded a Perl Development Grant to Larry Wall, the creator of Perl and designer of Perl 6, joining other 2002 grant recipients Dr. Damian Conway and Dan Sugalski.
"I am, of course, extremely pleased to receive this grant -- and no doubt my family will be glad to see food on the table. But it's even more gratifying to see our community developing the depth and maturity to successfully perform such a miracle, even when times are tough," said Wall. "When people care, the future is bright."
The Perl Development Grants are funded by donations. Over USD 80,000 has been donated so far, with a total of USD 240,000 needed for the three grants. See http://donate.perl-foundation.org/ for more information.
** For Immediate Release
Perl Foundation announces Larry Wall as a recipient of a 2002 Perl Development Grant
Holland, Michigan, February 5 2002 -- The Perl Foundation announces the awarding of a 2002 Perl Development Grant to Larry Wall.
Larry Wall joins Dr. Damian Conway and Dan Sugalski as 2002 grant recipients. Larry is the creator of the Perl programming language, and is currently drafting the specifications for Perl 6, the next major version of Perl.
With the addition of Larry Wall, the total amount the Foundation is plans to raise and sitribute for the Perl Development Grants comes to $240,000. The grants consist of $60,000 in stipend and $20,000 in travel allowance, and are partially funded for 2002. Partial disbursements are being given through the year as fundraising continues -- for more information, or to donate, visit http://donate.perl-foundation.org.
"We're pleased to be able to let Larry focus on Perl 6 without distraction," said Kevin Lenzo, President and Founder of the Perl Foundation. "Through these grants, the support of the community -- including sizeable amounts from individuals, as well as companies such as O'Reilly, BlackStar, Altec, DynDNS, Pair Networks, SAGE, Stonehenge Consulting, and Manning, can be put to use for the good of everyone."
The first Perl Development Grant was awarded to Dr. Conway by the Yet Another Society in 2001, when a individuals and corporate sponsors made it possible. Individual and small companies accounted for nearly half the US$75,000 award. The list of contributors, as well as the work produced under the grant, are at http://yetanother.org/damian.
About The Perl Foundation
The Perl Foundation is a unit of the Yet Another Society, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation for the advancement of collaborative efforts in computer and information sciences, and holds the copyrights on Perl 6 and Parrot, the engine behind Perl 6. For more information on The Perl Foundation, please visit http://www.perl-foundation.org. For more information on the Yet Another Society, visit http://yetanother.org.
I followed the link for more info... and there wasn't any.
I'm curious how the grants will work. Damian seems to be plugging along even though his target has not yet been reached. Dan still has a day job.
And isn't Larry already funded via O'Reilly? Or perhaps this means that O'Reilly'll be okay with switching over to funding Larry via a Perl Development Grant? It'd be great to fund these guys with no-strings attached. But, why add a 3rd grant when the first 2 aren't yet fully funded?
"More Info" is there now...
ggoebel on 2002-02-05T20:45:20
I spoke too fast. There is more info now...Re:No "More Info" yet
krellis on 2002-02-05T20:59:42
Disclaimer: I'm just this guy, you know, I hold no official position... anywhere.
To my knowledge, Larry was laid off from O'Reilly in October of last year. Since then he's been getting royalties from books and just surviving on what he has, as far as I'm aware. But I'm not Larry's official spokesperson, or anything near it
:) Re:No "More Info" yet
Damian on 2002-02-05T21:15:11
Damian seems to be plugging along even though his target has not yet been reached.
Monash has been "carrying" me for the last month, on the promise of renewed Perl Foundation funding. Of which four months has now been confirmed. After that, however, I'm either back to full-time academia...or unemployed.Dan still has a day job.
That is not the case.Isn't Larry already funded via O'Reilly.
Not since late last year. O'Reilly have more than done their share...they've taken care of Larry for the last five years. But they're not immune from the downturn and Larry wasn't the only valued member of staff they had to let go.Let me pull my head out of the sand
ggoebel on 2002-02-05T22:10:59
I did not realize this was the case.
My wife puts certain limits on my desire to give yet more money toward Perl Community efforts. But if I can't dig deeper into my own pocketbook, I wonder what can I do to help the Perl Foundation's fundraising campaign?
I wonder if there are publications that would run articles or free advertisements for the Perl Foundation? Hmm, I could write the editors of publications to which I subscribe, asking them to run an article on the YAS and the Perl Foundation. What other efforts could be directed with a reasonable chance of success?
There are many avenues of wealth that the Perl Foundation could pursue. Consider the following:
Re:goddamn return key
jjohn on 2002-02-06T02:56:02
I didn't finish my list.:-(
- sell shares in an moribund engery company with close ties to the current US Presidential adminstration.
- shake down our sofas
- finally return our soda/beer cans for the deposits
- ask mom and/or dad for cash
Re:Money Raising Ideas
hfb on 2002-02-06T05:07:27
Did you see the story where the Boston Girl Scouts had raised the price of cookies by $1 a box?! Let's go hang out near the packie and round up those little extortionists! What about a Perl Ponzi Scheme?
:) Hey! I KNOW , let's find Ken Lay as I hear they have to find him before he can be served his subpoena! I'll bet there would be a reward for that!
:) If no reward, we could just strap him onto the Volvo and drive through downtown Houston with a loudspeaker offering him to the highest bidder or the lynch mob. Bet his wife would find their 'liquidity' in a real hurry ...
Actually, Dan's is almost the most important disbursement. We've really felt the need to have someone to fundraise who doesn't have the distractions of a day job. Kevin's done a great job so far, but he has a company to run! Dan will be able to rattle cages, knock on doors, and work on his guilt-fu to get money from more companies. As he put it, he lives within an hour's drive of hundreds of biotech companies, most of which use Perl.
Obviously we'd have liked to give everyone a full year's grant right away, but we simply don't have the money for that. Those who have given have given very generously. Part of the work of the next four months will be tapping people who haven't given. We have several donors preparing to contribute large sums of money (tens of thousands of dollars) and we'll need to find several more of these to see us through the year.
What are they going to do? Damian's doing his Perl evangelist routine, flying to all corners of the globe (what a stupid phrase--there are an infinite number of corners on a globe, and I don't think the airlines can cope with that amount of frequent flier miles). For those who can't see him in person, enjoy his Exegeses and the two modules he's going to nail this year: Parse::Perl and Parse::FastDescent. His contributions to perl6 are mostly unseen, but it's safe to say that getting the perl6 language sorted out would be a much harder task without Damian.
Speaking of perl6, that's Larry's mandate. Oh, and to get out of the house and be seen by the Perl community at least once a month. So more of you will get to see the elusive Wallus Larriatus (common name: the Greater American Reclusive Language Designer). And more Apocalypses. Many more Apocalypses.
Dan's Parrot mission is to round it out. That means shared libraries, modules, and objects. That's his mission for half of his time. The other half he's holding CEOs by their ankles and collecting the change that falls from their pockets.
I'll make sure their grant proposals go online as well, so everyone knows what they've committed to.
--Nat
