[ANN] Ruby Central, Inc. Donation and Pledge Site (including RubyConf sponsorship)

ruby-talk
1

Dear Rubyists,

We are very pleased to announce the opening of the new:

           Ruby Central, Inc. Donation and Pledge Site

               (http://www.rubycentral.org/pledge)

At this site, you can:

   * make a general donation to Ruby Central, Inc.
   * sponsor or partially sponsor a specific RubyConf 2005
     item or activity (meals, t-shirts, and Matz's travel
     expenses)

General donations can be made directly by PayPal, or you can request that we
contact you first. Conference sponsors will be contacted to discuss and
arrange pledge fulfillment.

For those of you new to Ruby and/or Ruby Central, Inc., here are a few
questions and answers to get you oriented:

What is Ruby Central, Inc.?

   Ruby Central, Inc. (RCI) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, non-profit
   organization, dedicated to Ruby advocacy and support of
   Ruby projects.

When was RCI founded, and by whom?

   The organzation was founded in 2002 by David Black, Chad Fowler,
   and Dave Thomas. The current board of directors consists of
   David, Chad, and Rich Kilmer.

What projects does RCI support?

   Our biggest undertaking is the annual International Ruby Conference
   (RubyConf), which has taken place every year since 2001 and has been
   under the auspices of RCI since RCI's creation in 2002.

   RCI is also behind the 2004 Ruby Codefest Grant program.

What will RCI do in the future?

   More RubyConfs, hopefully more grant programs, and... well, many
   things are possible -- this is where your support comes in!

Thanks for your interest and support!

David Black
Chad Fowler
Rich Kilmer

for Ruby Central, Inc.

2

Can we have at least partial control over how our donation is spent?

It would be nice to allocate x% of our donation to go to specific projects we value and have the remaining y% decided by Ruby Central. To keep things simple, x and y can be 50% each.

For example, it might be attractive for people to be able to say, "here's $250, I'd like a portion of it to fund bounties for ruby-dl2, wxruby-swig, or rubygems."

3

Friday wrote:

Can we have at least partial control over how our donation is spent?

would advise against this sort of user-driven allocation. An unavoidable problem such schemes is that some categories always end up way over-funded while others end up way under-funded. It's much better to simply report how the funds were actually spent so that donors can appreciate all the categories they are supporting.

···

From my experience with charities and other non-profit organizations, I

--
Glenn Parker | glenn.parker-AT-comcast.net | <http://www.tetrafoil.com/&gt;

4

Hi --

Can we have at least partial control over how our donation is spent?

It would be nice to allocate x% of our donation to go to specific projects we value and have the remaining y% decided by Ruby Central. To keep things simple, x and y can be 50% each.

For example, it might be attractive for people to be able to say, "here's $250, I'd like a portion of it to fund bounties for ruby-dl2, wxruby-swig, or rubygems."

That isn't really practical, partly because it presupposes a
particular kind of program ("bounties" in your example, but it could
be almost anything) which may or may not be something we're involved
in (or want to be, or even can be, involved in), and partly because
from an adminstrative perspective it would potentially mean having to
organize and set up a new program for every donation that came in.

But if you're interested in funding a specific initiative, please
contact us and we may well be able to develop a way to do it.

David

···

On Sat, 14 May 2005, Friday wrote:

--
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net

5

David A. Black ha scritto:

Hi --

Can we have at least partial control over how our donation is spent?

It would be nice to allocate x% of our donation to go to specific projects we value and have the remaining y% decided by Ruby Central. To keep things simple, x and y can be 50% each.

For example, it might be attractive for people to be able to say, "here's $250, I'd like a portion of it to fund bounties for ruby-dl2, wxruby-swig, or rubygems."

That isn't really practical, partly because it presupposes a
particular kind of program ("bounties" in your example, but it could
be almost anything) which may or may not be something we're involved
in (or want to be, or even can be, involved in), and partly because
from an adminstrative perspective it would potentially mean having to
organize and set up a new program for every donation that came in.

But if you're interested in funding a specific initiative, please
contact us and we may well be able to develop a way to do it.

Instead of diverting part of the funds, what about setting up some kind of "bounty management service" ?
I think just providing infrastructure to publish bounties and to make contacts beetween promoters and applicants happen (ad leaving out details such as payment, work verification etc..) up to the involved people could be a reasonable thing, relieving RubyCentral of administrative duties but still providing a single point of reference.

···

On Sat, 14 May 2005, Friday wrote:

6

Duly noted. We may do that some day.

···

On 5/13/05, gabriele renzi <surrender_it@remove-yahoo.it> wrote:

David A. Black ha scritto:
> Hi --
>
> On Sat, 14 May 2005, Friday wrote:
>
>> Can we have at least partial control over how our donation is spent?
>>
>> It would be nice to allocate x% of our donation to go to specific
>> projects we value and have the remaining y% decided by Ruby Central.
>> To keep things simple, x and y can be 50% each.
>>
>> For example, it might be attractive for people to be able to say,
>> "here's $250, I'd like a portion of it to fund bounties for ruby-dl2,
>> wxruby-swig, or rubygems."
>
>
> That isn't really practical, partly because it presupposes a
> particular kind of program ("bounties" in your example, but it could
> be almost anything) which may or may not be something we're involved
> in (or want to be, or even can be, involved in), and partly because
> from an adminstrative perspective it would potentially mean having to
> organize and set up a new program for every donation that came in.
>
> But if you're interested in funding a specific initiative, please
> contact us and we may well be able to develop a way to do it.
>
>

Instead of diverting part of the funds, what about setting up some kind
of "bounty management service" ?
I think just providing infrastructure to publish bounties and to make
contacts beetween promoters and applicants happen (ad leaving out
details such as payment, work verification etc..) up to the involved
people could be a reasonable thing, relieving RubyCentral of
administrative duties but still providing a single point of reference.

--

Chad Fowler
http://chadfowler.com

http://rubygems.rubyforge.org (over 300,000 gems served!)

7

gabriele renzi wrote:

Instead of diverting part of the funds, what about setting up some kind of "bounty management service" ?

Not quite the same thing, but maybe interesting:

···

--
Glenn Parker | glenn.parker-AT-comcast.net | <http://www.tetrafoil.com/&gt;

8

Chad Fowler wrote:

···

On 5/13/05, gabriele renzi <surrender_it@remove-yahoo.it> wrote:

Instead of diverting part of the funds, what about setting up some kind
of "bounty management service" ?
I think just providing infrastructure to publish bounties and to make
contacts beetween promoters and applicants happen (ad leaving out
details such as payment, work verification etc..) up to the involved
people could be a reasonable thing, relieving RubyCentral of
administrative duties but still providing a single point of reference.

Duly noted. We may do that some day.

Ruby bounty hunters!

Sweet.

James