Libre Endowment Fund: Sustainable Development of Free Software
fdl-lef.org
fdl-lef.org
First of all, it is "a PhD", secondly, this looks like the typical scientific ecosystem power grab that we have seen multiple times in the US.
In the Python scientific space, people doing actual work are exploited ruthlessly.
As a side note, I find it unfortunate that often when things like this get posted, e.g. a foundation who supports free-software in this case, the first posts are not "this is a great thing", but instead someone goes through the website until they find something they disagree with and creates a negative debate and misinformation (several people here already understood the sentence to mean that projects led by non-PhDs can't apply).
An alternative perspective is that the original commenter is doing the authors a favour by highlighting that their writing is currently easily misinterpreted and would benefit from revision.
Title: Give open source a (tax) break
Cash that gets into FDL/LEF is then spent to sponsor existing FLOSS projects or to acquire intellectual property rights of existing works and change their license to FLOSS.
Case 1: https://bossanova.uk/jspreadsheet/v4/ got financed partly by FDL/LEF
Case 2: the radio hardware of the Open Radio Station (a 4G/5G vRAN base station based on Amarisoft stack and SlapOS) is in the process of being acquired and released as open source hardware. See https://shop.rapid.space/product_module/241/Resource_viewAsS...
The requirement for PhD is here to ensure that all projects that are financed by FDL/LEF have some kind of general interest or innovation, something which is useful to comply with Tax Law
How does it ensure that?
(Disclaimer: I'm one of the members of the selection committee. Ask me if you need more clarification).
* Giving people whose talent is thinking the chance to do that is a good idea. Better than losing that talent to management.
It also is grating, as many open source coders and maintainers choose to operate outside of both the academic and Silicon Valley cultures. Why would they want a committee of academics guiding and funding their projects?
All this being said, perhaps there will be positive outcomes from this fund.
In OSS scientific software, many PhDs have management jobs, where they write a couple of grand sounding fantasy roadmaps and have creative people who report to them. Printing money basically.
(As someone who has sat in various pre-selection committees over the last 15 years, i.e. without a final say on who gets funded and who doesn't, I can also add that sometimes the best applications don't get funded, and average or even mediocre ones get funded instead).
And yes, in every organizations, being research or not, you will inevitably have people who end up in management and manage people who do most of the creative work. Does this mean that these managers are (or become) incompetent or useless ? I don't think so.
(For background information on this specific topic, on can (re)read The Pratice of Management by Peter Drucker (1954) ( https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/48018.The_Practice_of... -> "“The manager is the dynamic, life-giving element in every business” who defines the organization’s mission, develops and retains productive teams, coordinates various activities, sets goals, and gets things done.").
At best this self-glorification applies to physical work like an Amazon distribution center, where one indeed needs direct people skills of a certain kind.
It applies less to intellectual endeavors in general.
It does not apply at all to software development, where a plethora of successful projects proves the direct opposite. It happens, of course, that projects succeed despite the manager, who still gets the credit.
Fred Brooks' works apply to software, not Peter Drucker's.
Yeah... but why? What attribute do you think is unique to people with PhDs?
Regarding projects which receive a grant, holding a PhD does not matter.
What a Phd recognizes, and is relevant to the project at hand, is the ability "to produce original research that expands the boundaries of knowledge".
(Per Wikipedia: "Because it is an earned research degree, those studying for a PhD are required to produce original research that expands the boundaries of knowledge, normally in the form of a thesis or dissertation, and defend their work against experts in the field. The completion of a PhD is often a requirement for employment as [...] a scientist in many fields.")
If you know this, and know that people without one can still produce original research that expands the boundaries of knowledge (even giving your own examples) then why do you require one?
Moreover, as it is a voluntary function, no one is harmed financially by this constraint.
If this foundation does not have such an overhead and will never create cozy director posts, cozy diversity officer posts etc., then this is a huge credibility boost and I'd mention it on the website (with the explicit promise!).
But then the foundation has to stick with it and not stealthily sneak in CoCs and people after a while.
Yet, there is plenty of reason to fund or reject projects based on who benefits from it. Which depends on who decides priorities and goals.
Using EU taxpayer money to fund projects that benefit mostly non-EU industrial groups that are competing against EU companies is self defeating.
Software does not exist in a vacuum. It's not some purely theoretical exercise. Like with any other technology, there can be very real economical, social or political ramifications.
In this case it's not even true. The commercial entities that play a big role in OpenStack are incorporated in the US but many of the engineers that do the actual work are located in the EU and available for hire in the EU talent pool.
In the end, it's money so I get why it has to be so long form and time consuming but I think a lot of really good projects will either not take the time to enroll or give up in the middle.
In my opinion, such a fund should be set up for both big projects with orgs behind them and small projects with only a few people. Otherwise, it doesn't actually benefit or encourage anyone. Of course, the amount of funding could be relative to the size and impact but everyone should be encouraged to enroll. That way OSS can become a truly sustainable system.
So is for European projects only?