> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hal E. Fulton [mailto:hal9000 / hypermetrics.com] 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Robert Feldt" <feldt / ce.chalmers.se>
> To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk / ruby-lang.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 12:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement....
> 
> 
> > Ps. David: Great news about the non-profit org. I guess 
> things haven't 
> > really taken form yet but do you also plan to sponsor Ruby 
> projects? I 
> > should be looking for a job soon so if you have a bag of 
> money... :-)
> 
> Ha! Good idea, Robert, but stand in line. ;)
> 
> Seriously, I think it will be a long time before
> this sort of thing happens. (Prove me wrong, please!!)
> 
> But here's another idea I've thought of.
> 
> There have been times I wanted a certain (often small)
> piece of software but didn't want to write it myself.
> 
> I have wished that I could give someone "x" dollars to
> do it for me (for sufficiently small values of x).
> 
> Of course, the hourly rate might not come to what a
> programmer usually makes. But look at all the work
> that people do for free. :)
> 
> In any case, I wouldn't be opposed to a little 
> bulletin board where people could swap small amounts
> of money for small amounts of work.
> 
> Hal

I think once Ruby Central, Inc gets tax exempt status folks could start
contributing to it (that's what I'm waiting for anyway).  Then, that money
could be used in the manner you suggest - dole out small amounts for various
projects.  It could also be used to offset conference setup costs, plane
tickets for Matz, or whatever.  This might require a committee (yikes!) to
determine who gets what.

In some ways this would be analogous to the Perl Foundation.  However, I
think that giving all the money to one or two folks, as the Perl Foundation
did, would be a mistake for the Ruby community.  Ruby is behind Perl in the
package/module race, and I think would benefit from a large number of
smaller projects than hardcore development of one or two large projects
(with the possible exception of Cardinal).  At this point in time, at least.

We could always combine the bulletin board approach with this as well, I
think.

Regards,

Dan