Hello! I don't chime in on the mailing list often, though the recent Tiger discourse had me reading attentively. I appreciated seeing some happy users with Tiger and MacPorts (even if I have been remiss in testing my contributions on older macOS/OS X versions especially since I had a couple of laptops stolen when my car was broken into last summer and one of those I had with a bunch of VMs which I haven't recreated on my current more constrained hardware); but while I would say that supporting Tiger users is a nice to have even if I am probably not going to be a point person for any of the efforts required, I wanted to raise a question/suggestion regarding funding and grants?
I know I have applied to various things over the years, albeit without success. However, perhaps MacPorts on the whole would be able to benefit more from such things more than I as an individual maintainer? e.g. something like this: https://resources.github.com/github-secure-open-source-fund/ (I applied as an individual) Or this: https://floss.fund/blog/announcing-floss-fund/ (I couldn't seem to please their validator, which doesn't even provide line numbers of where it flags errors; but maybe someone within MacPorts would be able to submit a successful application where I failed?). Or more commonly/widely known such as: https://nlnet.nl/propose/ (the next application deadline appears to be April of 2025 which is coming up pretty quickly) Or in the past: https://www.sovereign.tech/programs/fellowship (I think this one may have only been made available to German residents? But I am also pretty certain that MacPorts has at least one maintainer from Germany [e.g. neverpanic I think?] who maybe would have benefitted from such things where I personally wouldn't have.) Or less widely known/niche programs which seem to be in alignment with MacPorts and libre/free open source software e.g. https://www.futo.org/grants/ or email gra...@futo.org which is steered I think by "Right to Repair" advocate Louis Rossmann and former Silly Con Valley billionaire Eron Wolf. Doubtlessly, there are others potential grants and funding sources which may be good matches for MacPorts too? I can't remember all the ones to which I have applied and been declined and rejected over the years. But again, those have all just been me applying as an individual. I was once part of a group of artistic collaborators that did receive a grant from the Burning Man Organization, but in that instance while I supplied the network hardware and such, I didn't write the grant which was rewarded. Also, while interactive fire art sculptures are pretty cool I guess, they don't really benefit the larger libre/free open source community on a global scale and tend to be more for the attendees of a given festival where such art appears. Which is a long winded way of saying that I am guessing others are probably better suited within MacPorts to prepare successful grant and funding application efforts than I? As far as what to do with such funding, if such proposals were well received and approved? I dunno; I'd say having more build and testing infrastructure into self hosted realms would be rad (relegating GitHub [which isn't libre/free open source] and seems less in alignment with MacPorts' goals more like a read only mirror similar to how for example FreeBSD uses it), or maybe stalwart Tiger maintainers could be given some funds to make sure their older PPC systems are running with spares, or really, who knows what else might benefit if we had more financial resources? I think it's been several years since there was any kind of in person MacPorts developer gathering and from what I could discern, they were very far away (I am in California and I think the last in person meet up was in Europe?). If MacPorts had funds, perhaps more in person hackathon like events could occur? Gosh knows I can think of how awesome it would be to have more help on TLS libraries (e.g. the LibreSSL/OpenSSL dylib stanzas can be amended to many Portfiles and it should "just work" but there are hundreds of Portfiles to modify and test) or some graphics/VFX things being updated (e.g. usd or more ambitiously, adding new Portfiles for OpenToonz and such). As an example, the OpenBSD project tends to host hackathons with more frequency than in person MacPorts gatherings and I would posit, might actually be a smaller group of developers than listed MacPorts' maintainers yet I think they probably receive more funding and use such things not just for self hosting, but also travel expenses for the aforementioned hackathons as just another example out there in the libre/free open source world. I realize this is kind of from out of left field and it's entirely possible there are others within MacPorts who are much more tuned into existing funding and resources than I, but as it isn't something I had seen discussion about and it is something I have been actively involved with in my own efforts to find funding personally, I thought it might be worth discussing more openly about how the project at large might benefit more holistically than me as an individual contributor and maintainer. Other than that, I hope everyone has been doing OK with 2025 and the year of the Wood Snake! ｜ グ レ ェ ーgrey
