Recently in Perl Foundation Category
In a new move for TPF, the grans committee is soliciting community input on the proposals for this quarter. Alberto Simões writes...
To this post follows a set of posts with proposals received by the Perl Foundation grants committee during the second call for grant proposals for 2008. Although not usual, the rules of the TPF GC are changing and we hope to make this a rule. Proposals are accepted during one month and after that period, they are posted for public discussion on the Internet. This is important to make GC more aware of the community interest on the project, and to help opening the grants attribution process.
During the month of April we received the following grant
proposals:
- Perl 6 Tables
- Solidifying and Extending the Blog Normalize project
- Add Perl support to NetBeans
- Perl on a Stick
- SMOP - Simple Meta Object Programming
- Fixing Bugs in the Archive::Zip Perl Module
- CatalystX::Installer Application
-
Perl Survey
- Revision Control for all CPAN
- Improve POE::Component::IRC
- DBEditor
- Extending BSDPAN
Please take some time on reading the proposals carefully and give some feedback on the relevance of the proposals.
The article doesn't say where or how to give feedback, or by when. I'd start at the original posting on the TPF blog.
The Perl Foundation is calling for grant proposals for Perl-related projects. This can be a great way to get funding a project you're working on, or would like to see worked on. TPF has funded Strawberry Perl, Perl::Critic, pVoice and dozens of other projects in the past. Maybe yours can be the next.
The Perl Foundation has three new members
- Karen Pauley, Steering Committee Chair
- Josh McAdams, Public Relations
- Jeremy Fluhmann, Conferences Committee Chair
(Following is Eric Wilhelm's call for participation in Google Summer of Code.) -- Andy
The Perl Foundation is participating in Google's 2008 Summer of Code™ and we have a lot of capable, willing mentors looking forward to working with some talented, driven students. So, we would like you to help find those students (and quickly -- the students must apply before March 24th.)
This is a rare opportunity for students to get a chance to get a paid summer of hacking on exciting projects like Parrot, Perl 6, Moose, Jifty, SVK, Catalyst, or their very own Perl modules or applications. It also brings new talent into the community and gives the student a hefty "real world" experience with a knowledgable mentor. Further, employers love to see this sort of demonstration of teamwork, handling deadlines, communication skills, resourcefulness and etc.
We're looking for promising students who are interested in open source (or maybe you know someone who *should* be interested in open source.) Knowledge of Perl is optional if the project is Parrot-related. The student doesn't need to be an expert in the problem domain (after all, learning is part of the process), but should bring a big pile of creativity, problem-solving skills, and determination.
Students should review the page of suggested projects, encouraged to bring their own proposals (those are often the best.) The most important first step is getting in touch with the community and discussing their project idea with potential mentors.
Google has posted some flyers if you happen to have a university
bulletin board or hallway handy:
http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code/wiki/GsocFlyers
Additional info:
http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?gsoc2008
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/faqs.html
(Note that Google has particular requirements to do with the fact that they are paying the students. The student must be able to show their eligibility regarding enrollment and employability.)
Remember, the Perl community draws talent from many fields, so if you came to Perl from a non-computer-science major and still have contacts in that department from your university, it is probably worth mentioning to them.
Please feel free to forward this to whoever may be interested.
Details are non-existent right now, but the Perl Foundation is back in Google's Summer Of Code program. Congratulations to all who helped us get in there, especially Eric Whilhelm, who displayed an astonishing level of JFDI to get this to happen.
Jim Brandt writes in the TPF news blog that the Perl Foundation is helping a court case surrounding the Artistic License. A Java project has adopted the Artistic License and is now in the middle of a legal battle that could be important legal precedent for future cases regarding open source licensing. TPF has helped support an amicus curae brief in the case.
Jim's article notes "the argument [in the case] that there can be no remedy to a copyright holder who chooses not to charge money for their work." It's kind of like how puzzled relatives ask why me work on open source projects if I'm not getting paid to do it, as if it's less worthwhile that there's no money (directly) changing hands. Here, the plaintiffs in the case are trying to make that perception into settled case law. Thanks to TPF for their work here against that happening.
The Perl Foundation needs new blood. Jim Brandt writes:
Have you ever wanted to get involved in The Perl Foundation, but didn't know how? Well, now's your chance. I'm pleased to announce open self-nominations for the following TPF roles:
You can follow the links above to read descriptions of each of the positions. If you think you're a good fit for one or more of them, send me an email at cbrandt at perlfoundation dot org. I'll then invite you to a dedicated wiki we have set up just for the election.
Once you join the wiki, you'll set up a page to post all of your experience and answer the questions provided in each section above. The wiki is private, but you'll be able to see the other candidate pages, and they'll see yours.
The deadline to get all of your information in is midnight next Tuesday, March 11. Our committees elect their members, so the Conferences Committee will be voting on the CC chair and the Steering Committee will vote on the chair and PR positions. After we have a chance to look over everyone's information, we vote and select our newest members.
You only have a week, so don't wait too long. I look forward to hearing from you.
Karen Pauley is stepping up to run for Steering Committee chair, so how about you? Maybe that's a spot you'd like to work on, or maybe public relations is more up your alley. This is your chance to help lead TPF lead Perl and Perl development.
Astute followers of TPF will note that the PR spot is open, a spot that I once held. Yes, I am no longer doing PR for TPF. I've done that job for a while, and now I'm moving on to do other things, not least of which is this little news called perlbuzz.com.
You may be hearing murmurs about this, so by my reckoning it falls on me to document it. R.E.M. have taken a stand by releasing the videos from their new album under Artistic License 2.0. The Artistic License 2.0 is a product of the Perl Foundation, and is the license under which Perl is released.
Normally creators have turned to Creative Commons for movies & music, so it's interesting to see R.E.M. buck the trend and use Artistic License. This can only help the visibility of open source. I'm glad that of all the licenses out there, they chose the one I love. Maybe there'll be a point in the future when Artistic 2.0 is used everywhere, that it will be automatic for the people who create music to think of TPF's license.
(Please send complaints about R.E.M. references to the dead letter office /dev/null.)
Here are a couple of interviews for your reading enjoyment. Patrick Michaud talks about Perl 6 in advance of FOSDEM '08, a conference in Brussels. The interview is a bit old, pre-dating the naming of Rakudo.
In the second interview, Richard Dice talks about his 14 years with Perl, and current news about the Perl Foundation.
You know, I'm guessing there's other good content in $foo perl magazin, but since Richard's interview is the only thing in English, it's going to have to stay at the guessing stage.
Jim Brandt announced over in the Perl Foundation's blog that rt.cpan.org got some much-needed speedups. Even though TPF was considering forking over some dough for hardware upgrades, Jesse Vincent and his team managed to speed things up with software only.
