TPF Grants Committee Presentation

1. TPF Grant Committee
ambs - TPF GC Chair

2. TPF Grants Committee?
TPF supports Perl-related projects development;
TPF GC is responsible for:
publishing calls for grant proposals;
evaluating and ranking grant proposals;
assigning grant managers to funded grants;
performing regular reports on running grants;

3. Who is TPF GC?
TPF GC is composed by:
me, Curtis “Ovid” Poe, Leon Brocard, Rafael
Garcia-Suarez, Thomas Klausner, Ben Tilly, Will
“Coke” Coleda and Perrin Harkins;
TPF GC is helped by Grant managers:
Adrian Howard, Dave Rolsky, Rosellyne
Thompson, Jeff Horwitz and Ricardo Signes;

4. Who is TPF GC?
CURTIS (OVID) POE
• Previous GC Chair

5. Who is TPF GC?
• YAPC::EU orange founder
LEON BROCARD (ACME)

6. Who is TPF GC?
RAFAEL GARCIA-SUAREZ
• Perl 5.10 Pumpkin

7. Who is TPF GC?
THOMAS KLAUSNER
• CPANTS Guy

8. Who is TPF GC?
• tilly on perlmonks!
BEN TILLY

9. Who is TPF GC?
WILL (COKE) COLEDA
• Parrot hacker

10. Who is TPF GC?
PERRIN HARKINS
• mod_perl guy

11. Who is TPF GC?
ALBERTO SIMÕES (AMBS)
• Current GC Chair

12. ROSELLYNE THOMPSON
DAVE ROLSKY
ADRIAN HOWARD
RICARDO SIGNES
JEFF HORWITZ
And Grant Managers

13. Why Them?
We need someone!
Somebody will always ask!
Voted originally by TPF board.
Members addition is now voted by itself.
Yes, this might be bad!
Yes, this is good as well!
Pick your choice

14. How does it work?
A call for grant proposals each three months;
Proposals are received under RT during a month;
Proposals are posted for community discussion;
Proposals are voted by GC community;
Results are published;
Grant managers assigned to accepted proposals;

15. FAQ:
Who can make proposals?
anyone;
What kind of proposals?
any project relevant to the community;
How to create a proposal?
follow the guidelines in the webpage;

16. Proposal contents (1/3)
Basics:
Your name and email;
A title for your project;
A small but incisive abstract;
Your biography;

17. Proposal contents (2/3)
Project relevancy:
Benefits to the Perl Community;
Deliverables;

18. Proposal contents (3/3)
Proposal details:
Project details;
Project schedule;
Amount requested;

19. What kind of proposals?
From small to big tasks;
From simple to complex tasks;
Don’t propose a complex task if newbie;
Not necessary new projects:
why not to correct bugs?
why not to add features to existing code?

20. How do you evaluate?
Check if the proposal is relevant to community;
(now easier with community feedback)
Compare project with existing alternatives;
Evaluate proposal schedule and feasibility;
Compare relevance with other proposals;
Check if the user is able to complete the task;
Evaluate the amount requested...

21. Success stories
Improve Perl 5 (Nicholas Clark)
Perl 5 maintenance and development is
proceeding steadily, but there are a number of
stubborn bugs that no volunteer has had the time
to work on. This project will ensure that these
bugs are resolved, as well as providing resource to
develop new features for both 5.8.x and 5.10.
$11.000 (most expensive grant ever)

22. Success stories
Nicholas Clark:
[Why would not submit another grant to TPF...]
what was a hobby became work, without any of
the benefits that work usually has.
Success constrains: submitter actually has to
want to do it, and the issue of money has to be
the actual blocker. Grants don't create time, do
increase pressure, and for most people the
amount of money the grant offers isn't going to
be significant compared with what they could
earn commercially.

23. Success stories
Policies for Perl::Critic (Chris Dolan)
Implement a selection of (20) new policies for
Perl::Critic.
$2.000

24. Success stories
Chris Dolan:
Motivation: [...] I knew that I wasn't going to get
it done without external motivation. I work best
under pressure, [...] The money made it easier to
justify the hours spent [...], but was a smaller
part of the equation than the publicity.
Success constrains: (a) a respected project
that is already underway (b) realistic, quantifiable
end goals (c) an experienced grantee (d)
concrete intermediate goals

25. Success stories
Promote pVoice and the use of Perl for writing
Assistive Software (Jouke Visser)
Perl may not be the language people would think
of first to create something like pVoice. [...] I want
to show everyone that Perl is perfectly suitable for
this job. Besides this objective, I also want to
convince medical professionals that there's an
alternative for expensive proprietary software to
assist physically challenged people [...]
$3.500

26. Success stories
Re-factoring Editor Grant (Adam Kennedy)
Synopsis not relevant: the original objective was
not completed! But another (probably better)
objective was achieved: Strawberry Perl!
Original requested value was paid: $5.000;

27. Not successful stories
Media-Wiki Syntax Parser
project accepted, but grantee did not start
working right after it being accepted;
grantee got a $job;
grantee lost interest on the subject
Make Money vs Do Interesting Things

28. Not successful stories
Running Too-Long Grants
Interesting tasks, but lack of organization;
Task might be useful, but not in the mood;
Try to follow the schedule!
Running twice the schedule is OK!
Running more than that, is procrastination!

29. Thank You!