Hello, all, The student application deadline has passed and we now have over twenty student applications to review. We will not know for another week and a half or so how many students we will be able to accept, and Google will announce final decisions on the 24th.
In the meantime, I would like to bring up the question of whether or not Clojure/GSoC should seek fiscal sponsorship from an organisation like the Software Freedom Conservancy or Software in the Public Interest. Naturally, the first question is to ask is: Why? In the case of GSoC, the reason is money. As part of GSoC, Google gives money to mentoring organisations. We have used this money in previous years to help get successful GSoC students to Clojure conferences. However, there are a couple of problems with taking Google's money: 1. If an individual takes it, they incur a tax liability as it counts as personal income. 2. It's not enough to get our students to conferences. Our students come from around the world, and it's not possible to fly, house, and feed them entirely on what Google gives. As a result, even with the help from Google, it may be that students who cannot afford some of these expenses are unable to take advantage of this opportunity. Last year, Cognitect was extremely helpful in helping Clojure/GSoC with the first problem in particular, and I am very grateful to Alex Miller and Lynn Grogan for all of their help in dealing with all of the administrative paperwork and coordinating travel arrangements with our students. I would like to be able to do even better this year. I would like to try to raise money from the community to help get our students to conferences. While non-profit status doesn't matter for corporations and is not relevant for international donors, I think it can make a difference for individual donors. Additionally, I believe that ensuring the organisation is open and transparent in how it handles donor's money is important. I believe that the overhead necessary to create a non-profit just for this is simply overwhelming. As such, I think it makes sense for Clojure/GSoC to seek fiscal sponsorship with a non-profit. Nonetheless, I would like to invite the community to comment on this proposal. In particular, questions that should be addressed are: 1. Does this proposal make sense? Is it worth the effort? 2. Should the scope of a fiscal sponsorship be restricted to Clojure's participation in GSoC? There was an unsession at the Conj last year where a number of us talked about the idea of a Clojure community non-profit. It could potentially do things such as supporting community projects such as Clojars, helping out local user groups, providing training, or even running events. 3. Are you interested in getting involved? Especially if the scope of a fiscal sponsorship extends beyond Clojure's involvement in GSoC, it will take a group effort to ensure the success of this effort. Thank you all for taking the time to read this, and I hope to get some constructive feedback. Sincerely, Daniel -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
