Re: Usage of Debian's Money

[Moray Allan <moray@sermisy.org>]

On 2013-03-12 12:43, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Mar 2013, Moray Allan wrote:
> > If there was general support then we could look at organising a
> > funded program, but I would need a lot of persuasion before wanting
> > to get into the question of Debian picking specific individuals to
> > pay for their work while everyone else is unpaid volunteers.[2]
> >
> > [2] Some of you will remember Dunc-Tank.
>
> Despite the above statement, your platform mentions “I would seek
> suggestions on how we could try to advance Debian's goals by spending
> money in ways we're not currently doing. While I think we should be
> careful with money, I would be willing to authorise spending to try 
> out
> new ideas from others, where goals can be defined and the success of 
> an
> initiative can be judged.”
>
> What kind of new ideas would be acceptable? Feel free to invent some
> hypothetical examples to illustrate.

Before thinking about any further examples, I first want to explain 
what I meant above, since it seems like I wasn't clear to you:

I said I would need (a lot of) persuasion before paying individual 
Debian contributors.  That's true, but it certainly doesn't mean I would 
attempt to veto paid internship stipends for e.g. students, if there 
seemed to be general support for them.  I was not trying to exclude them 
from "acceptable" ideas.

For ideas which have not been tried at all before, my personal 
persuasion-threshold for doing an experiment would be lower than for 
this, though I would still want to be careful about the amount spent.

--
Moray