Five months ago today TPF announced that booking.com had donated it $50,000 "to aid in the further development and maintenance of the Perl programming language in general, and Perl 5.10 in particular." Vienna.pm still has ââ¬25,000 to spend on "advancements of Perl". Combined, that's $85,000 of money waiting to be usefully spent. If things aren't happening in the Perl world, it's not through lack of money.
<smartass>Last I checked, 25,000 + 50,000 came to 75,000</smartass>
I suspect the problem is somewhat in having people to give it to who can do stuff that the community views as worthwhile AND that they wouldn't be able to (either at all or only on a much longer timescale) without it. For some - maybe many - folks who already have a full time job (which I suspect is the majority) that's kinda hard. I know full well the times I've been putting in full on-site days on projects, doing anything on others on an evening was kinda...urgh. Plus I know that if I don't actually use weekends for getting a decent amount of time away from what I do during the week, my productivity and motivation the next week won't be so good. I suspect this is the case for more people (of course, not all people) than just me.
Thus for some people the chance to earn a little extra on a weekend and evening is probably not going to really work out in reality, even if they desire it to do so. And few are going to choose to quit a secure job - especially with the current state of the job market - for something that can only promise to fund them for a year or so. And while I can't relate to it 'cus I'm still unwanted^Wsingle, I can imagine that this is a stronger emotion for those who have folks (spouse/partner/kids) to care for besides themselves. And in that sense maybe we *are* blocking on money - yes it's great that we do have such a nice cash pile to pay people well to do worthwhile stuff, but perhaps it's not enough to give someone a stable long-enough term position, and thus tempt them from an existing job.
Maybe I'm off base, maybe not. But I suspect folks in my situation are rare (to fill in for those who don't know me, I graduated from uni, figured I'd spend a year traveling and earning bits on odd gigs that I could do mostly remotely, then realized that was fun and that with some care, use of contacts who often needed bits doing and a vague effort at financial planning I could make that a relatively sustainable lifestyle). If it's possible to find a few people in my situation - who can choose to not take That Other Contract and get funded to do some Perl work instead, and have the skills to do the work involved - then it's maybe quite easy to spend an amount like this. But otherwise, it's probably a case of allocating a big chunk of it to try and lure an individual from a full-time position, or who is looking for one, on the basis that they understand it's for a limited time unless more funding can come along.
Just my 2 (euro) cents,
Jonathan
FX fail...
perigrin on 2009-05-26T03:54:19
25 000 Euros = 35 030 U.S. dollars (according to Google)
Which 35000 (there's a commission right?) + 50000 = 85000.
oh noes I has a fail
JonathanWorthington on 2009-05-26T09:06:19
Yes, you're right. Oops.:-) Re:Math fail ;-)
nicholas on 2009-05-26T13:22:06
Maybe I'm off base, maybe not.
I think your assessment is pretty reasonable. Certainly, it ties up with what I'm thinking, and why I'm fairly sure that "we" (well, they-who-have-this-money) can't "simply" offer to pay someone to "do stuff that needs doing" on Perl 5 - because nearly everyone obvious who already "does stuff" has a job, and isn't in a position where they can free up time if given money.
Whilst anyone who does not (yet) "do stuff" would need training and mentoring (to some degree) by someone who already knows about it, and even if the volunteers can find the time to do that part, they certainly don't have the time to run the recruitment process that would precede it, or the HR and line management processes that would run in parallel with it. The total cost of a full time employee is (waves arms) somewhere from 2 to 4 times their salary. Whilst some of that cost is in fixtures such as office space that would likely not apply here, some of it is a cost borne by the employing organisation relating to "administering" that employee. That cost will continue to exist, and in the case of TPF or Vienna.pm paying to employ somone, that cost is something that would manifest as time needed by someone(s) else. Time that we don't (yet) have. Hence why I was hoping that TPF would have approved the original more flexible plan for Richard, which would have allowed some investigation of what it would take to sustain actually employing someone, if not taking the process further.
Re:Math fail ;-)
zby on 2009-05-31T08:06:27
That's why I think it is best to spend that money not on programming but on infrastructure: conferences, hosting (for Perl Mongers for example), graphic design for important Perl projects, etc.
