Re: Using Debian funds to support a gcc development task

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Andreas" == Andreas Tille <tille@debian.org> writes:

    Andreas> Hi
    Andreas> On Sat, Sep 28, 2019 at 11:44:26AM +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
    >> So, would -project be willing to support our cause through Debian
    >> funds?

    Andreas> Besides other good reasons to say "no" to this question I'm
    Andreas> wondering whether donators of our money would consider
    Andreas> supporting gcc on m68k is a good use of their money.

Echoing to some extent one of the other responses.  I think that we
should be prepared to justify how our work meets the needs of our users
and is good for free software.

How we approach donors probably differs based on their size.

I actually think that our large donors are able to understand that one of the
reasons they give money to Debian is to do things they themselves
wouldn't do.
So, yeah, I do think some of the larger donors expect us to spend money
on projects that don't get a lot of commercial attention.  Currently I
don't think our donors (at least those who follow us) expect us to
directly fund development, but I think we could explore changing that.

I think we need to be open with our smaller donors and work with them to
make sure they are OK with what we are doing.  For example I think we
would need to be very careful to work with our small donors and bring
them through the transition if we were going to directly fund projects.

--Sam