Re: On what we want to support: travel?

alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com (Alvaro Herrera) writes:
> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>> I appreciate the views of those who are part of the funds group, and
>> I think it's excellent that they make their views known here, too.
>> But I'm a little concerned that the _only_ people we've heard from so
>> far are people who will be held responsible for disbursing the money.
>> Is no-one else in the community interested in this issue?
>
> It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> funding developers.

The trouble with that is that it's a much "lumpier" thing to try to
arrange.

It would be of very little value, for instance to try to increase
development efforts by giving out $500. The amount of money would
need to be more along the lines of a "salary-replacing" amount, and
I'm not sure that SPI is in a position to be able to easily cope with
that, either.

Paying someone a salary mandates setting up an "employment"
arrangement, which draws the organization into the not inconsiderable
complexities of having to deal with labour and employment laws.
Governments are not ungenerous in the imposition of regulations in
these areas.

In contrast, it is relatively straightforward to reimburse people for
travel costs.
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