Sandro Mathys

Dear Planet Fedora,

Back in 2008, we planned the FAD EMEA 2008 and needed some extra money. To raise this, I contacted persons I knew from companies that use mainly OpenSource/Fedora to earn their money. This was a successful idea, as Puzzle ITC from Bern, Switzerland donated as a notable amount.

To drive this further and allow (or rather help) Ambassadors to raise money from companies willing to give something back, I set up a wiki page regarding this matter. Soon, this was not about cash only but about any sort of donation/contribution. I also presented that idea to the attendees of the FAD EMEA 2008 (and to some random people in #fedora-ambassadors) and the feedback was totally positive. It was then decided that it’d be a good idea to invite every project/SIG/whatever within the Fedora Project to add their ideas/needs.

Unfortunately, I didn’t push this any further since then. But it’s time to do something!

So, please take the time to read the draft of my input so far. Note that it’s only about Ambassadors so far (and is in their namespace, too). But I think you can get the idea and most of this can be rewritten for the whole of Fedora Project. Also, there’s already a generic ‘contribute‘ page – but there’s not lot on it.

By the way, the page is intended 1) to contact companies we know are using Fedora/RHEL to ask for their kind contributions and 2) to point companies asking us how they can help to a big list of ways to do so. The result should be, that no company can say ‘there’s no acceptable way for us to contribute to the Fedora Project’, just because there’s so many ways!

I therefore request for two things:

1. Do not edit or move the draft page (or generate another site out of it) just yet! I’d like to collect all the inputs, organize that a bit, discuss it further were necessary and then set up another draft.
2. Bring in your comments! Does your team need ‘manpower’, ‘paying a bill’ or ‘money donations’ from (potential) contributors, too? Do you have anything else a contributor could help you with? Is there anything else that shouldn’t be forgotten about?

I welcome all your comments – by comment to this post, by e-mail (red at fp.o) or in person (e.g. during LinuxTag 2009 or FUDCon EMEA in Berlin, at FrOSCon or at OpenExpo).