Re: [ANN] Offering to work directly for the Ruby community!

FWIT, I've seen python sites which list programmers wanting to do 
specific things, and will, if people wish to fund them. I believe people 
with specific projects also show up there. It's been a while, so I can't 
tell you more than this. I HAVE see the idea working, though. The trick 
seems to be that someone says "I can do this cool  thing, but not for 
free", and the "thing" sells itself to a community of interest. Enough 
people buy in, and it's launched.

Good luck.

t.

Gregory Brown wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I've been prone to having crazy ideas before, but this one is my
> latest.  After posting a long, whimsical post on the O'Reilly blog
> about this, my friends have persuaded me to try this for real.
>
> If you haven't read that post yet, it's here:
>
> http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2008/03/id_love_to_quit_my_job_sort_of.html
>
> === Quick Project Summary  ===
>
> ***Through the donations of community members, I would like to put my
> commercial and personal software projects on the back burner for a
> prolonged period of time (3-6 months), and focus on working on open
> source projects that are of high importance to the majority of
> Rubyists.***
>
> If you've already seen discussion of this idea elsewhere, and are just
> wondering where to donate, head to:
>
> http://pledgie.com/campaigns/571
>
> Otherwise, if you still need convincing, read on:
>
> === Why does the open source Ruby community need some grassroots,
> non-commercial love? ===
>
> The Ruby community suffers from an embarrassment of riches when it
> comes to open source software. It seems that countless hackers and the
> companies they work for are eagerly contributing new software, and
> working on shaking bugs out of old software. This on its own is a
> great reason to believe that Ruby will continue to be a serious
> contender for many different programming tasks, both in the commercial
> and hobbyist sectors.
>
> Still, there are complications. With the explosion of interest in Ruby
> and software written in it, the community is feeling growing pains at
> all levels, especially in our infrastructure that supports application
> development in Ruby. Though it's relatively easy to find paid Rails
> work that allows you to contribute a plugin to the community now and
> again, it's pretty hard to find a company that'd fund fixing the
> various bugs that have been reported with RubyForge, our central
> software repository. Though many Rubyists will seek 1.9 compliance in
> their greenfield projects, it's unlikely that we'll see large numbers
> of existing Ruby projects get fixed up in a short period of time
> without some external push. These are the kinds of things that casual
> hacking as well as commercial work don't really answer, and this
> proposal aims to offer a solution to them.
>
> Put simply, I'd like to put my commercial work as well as my personal
> software projects on the back burner for several months, so that I can
> work on problems that are common among most Rubyists. My goal is to
> raise the funds necessary to do this from the community itself, and
> there are a number of reasons why I'd be a good candidate for this
> sort of thing.
>
> Ideally, I'd like to spend 3 to 6 months as an employee of J. Random
> Rubyist, working on projects that matter to me, but also matter to the
> many hard working, busy, and wonderful Ruby developers I've met over
> the last several years.
>
> == Why Me? ==
>
> I can name a ton of Rubyists I'd say would be technically proficient
> and community centric enough to take on this kind of effort. However,
> I've been fortunate enough to have several unique experiences that
> make me confident that I could do some great work on something like
> this:
>
> * I have successfully participated as a Ruby Central Codefest Grant
> recipient in 2005 as well as a Google Summer of Code student in 2006
> (Ruport).
>
> * I have been very active in the community, so my work and
> contributions can easily be reviewed by anyone who wishes to do so.
> I've spoken at a number of Ruby users groups and conferences,
> including RubyConf 2006 in Denver, CO.
>
> * I have a deep passion for working on open source software, and place
> this interest ahead of making boatloads of money. Though I expect to
> do some minimal commercial work during the duration of this project, I
> have no problem making this project my primary focus for a while.
>
> * My living expenses are relatively low, and I do not have a full-time
> job, a family to take care of, or any other major commitments that
> would take me away from dedicating time to a project like this. For
> the record, I have endless admiration and respect for the hackers out
> there who are 'doing it all', though I don't envy the complications
> that must arise from that.
>
> * I am very comfortable with candid, transparent discussions in
> public. This will be necessity for a project like this to succeed.
>
> Because of these reasons, I think I'm the right person for this job. I
> hope you do too.
>
> === Logistics ===
>
> If you're looking for the shiny stuff, such as the ideas for things I
> want to work on, skip to the section below here, but here a few
> important logistic details:
>
> 1) I need to make at least $500/wk to cover my living expenses.
>
> 2) I need to figure out whether I'll be working on this project, and
> for how long, by April 1st.  This will let me figure out how to
> re-arrange my commercial work so as to not conflict with this project.
>    This means that I need to raise money rather quickly, just over 3
> weeks remain from the time of this posting.
>
> 3) $500/wk is less than what I'd like to live on, and less than what I
> make.  So I'll accept donations up to $20000 for a 6 month period,
> even though $500/wk would put it at $13000.  If I make less than that
> in donations by April 1st, and at least clear the cost of working two
> weeks, I have no problem working fewer weeks at $500/wk.  This means
> that earlier donations will be 'sustaining the project', and later
> donations will be 'supporting my comfort'.
> Though I would be quite happy to even be able to dedicate two weeks to
> this project, reaching the $20000 maximum would be phenomenal, as it'd
> make this hardly a sacrifice for me.
>
> 4) Until April 1st, this is pretty much a process open to change and
> community suggestions.   Please join this mailing list and ask
> questions / make suggestions, whether or not you choose to donate.
> http://groups.google.com/group/rubymendicant
>
>
> === Project Ideas ===
>
> Here are some of the ideas I've cooked up, and I'm open for more
> suggestions:
>
> = Ruby 1.9 Field Medic.
>
> Start with Ruport and tumble through dependencies, working on
> compatibility issues. From there, work on helping with 1.9 support
> where needed in projects like: ActiveRecord, mechanize, redcloth,
> Camping, Merb, hpricot, highline, and maybe others. I've not checked
> the 1.9 status of these projects, but I'm sure could come up with many
> more if time permitted.
>
> = A Six Month Nightmare with RubyForge.
>
> Tons of bug reports!
> Tons of feature requests!
>
> No one likes PHP. But RubyForge is driving me insane. I would be
> willing to fix it given the time and funding.
> Uncovering Hidden Gems
>
> I could request suggestions for various useful but under-documented or
> less well known Ruby libraries, either third party or stdlib, and
> write a large series of tutorials and quick references. The idea here
> is that it would hopefully result in a large amount of documentation
> being written, which would spark contributions to these many 'hidden
> gems' in Ruby.
>
> = First class PDF support in Ruby.
>
> I'm currently maintaining PDF::Writer along with Mike Milner. The
> library implements most of the PDF spec, and is incredibly useful.
> However, it's not very usable. It is slow, has API issues, and
> countless bugs. The current plan is to maintain the library making
> minor improvements when we can. A large time block would allow for
> something better: A fast, thin, pretty rewrite. This would go a long
> way to helping Ruby be a first choice for reporting software
> development.
>
> = From Lone Hacker to Community Leader.
>
> I could work with newer or shy developers to help them get acquainted
> with free software practices in general. I'd help people learn how to
> package gems, set up mailing lists, do sane release
>
> ** Please send me more ideas! **
>
> === Summary / How To Help ===
>
> If you've read through this long email and still want *more* detail,
> my 'official' proposal is a bit longer and has some additional info:
>
> http://rubymendicant.wikidot.com/proposal
>
> If you've managed to get this far, you're probably at least partially
> interested in this project, and the most straightforward way you could
> help is of course, make a donation:
>
> http://pledgie.com/campaigns/571
>
> I'm suggesting that $50 is a good number to shoot for, because if I
> end up doing proportional voting for projects, that's probably the
> amounts I'll split them up into.  Of course, I welcome anything folks
> wish to offer, so feel free to offer $5 or $500 if you wish.
>
> There are other ways you can help.  This project will depend entirely
> on word of mouth and the support of the community.  If you know my
> work, or just think I'm a good guy, please tell your friends.  Blog
> posts linking to the proposal and donation page would be great.
>
> Finally, if you're skeptical but have constructive criticism you can
> offer, or have ideas on how you think this should work, or are just
> generally curious, please join this mailing list and get involved:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/rubymendicant
>
> Thank you for those who've read all the way to the end of this *long*
> email.  I hope this project succeeds, and I look forward to working
> directly for J. Random Rubyist starting in mid April!
>
> -greg
>
>
>