LA.pm: fwd: [gnat@oreilly.com: The Perl Foundation wants *you*]

[Robert Spier]

This is a very worthwhile cause.  perl-foundation is going to become
the umbrella group for YAS and Perl Mongers.  But anyway, visit the
websites and learn more :)

-R

----- Forwarded message from Nathan Torkington <gnat at oreilly.com> -----

Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 13:25:27 -0700
From: Nathan Torkington <gnat at oreilly.com>
To: advocacy at perl.org
Subject: The Perl Foundation wants *you*

We (the YAS board and advisors) decided at TPC this year that
corporate America needed a more respectable name to give money to.
"Yet Another Society" just didn't make managers comfortable.  So YAS
has started The Perl Foundation, which (among other things) will
collect and distribute money for the development grants that Damian
Conway benefitted from last year.

  http://www.perl-foundation.org/

This also marks the start of the fundraising work for the 2002 grants.
Yes, plural.  We're expanding our horizons for 2002.  We're going to
fund Damian again (he's proven addictive :-) but we're also going to
fund Dan Sugalski.  Dan's the architect behind the Parrot runtime
engine for perl6 (side-note: we have scalar support now!
www.parrotcode.org) and a year of Dan's time will help Parrot kick 365
times more ass than it currently does.

As a member of the Perl community, please do consider contributing.
You can give as much as is comfortable.  I know how tight money is in
these hideous economic times, but I strongly urge you to make some
room for Perl.  Whether it's $10, $100, or more, every bit counts.  

If you work for a company that relies heavily on Perl, please talk to
your managers about arranging a donation to the Perl development
grant.  They are tax deductible, and there's no lower (or upper!)
limit on donations.  Last year's grant featured a heart-warming number
of individual contributors, but despite the amazing turnout and
generosity, half of the final amount for Damian came from one UK
company, Blackstar.  It's no secret that we need turnout from both
individuals and businesses, and we can't meet our 2002 goals without
increasing the amount of support we get from companies.  If you work
for a company, you can help us get that support.

So here's a challenge for you: I just donated $100, bringing the total
up to $2,480.  If it passes $5,000 by Friday night, I'll give another
$100.  There are hundreds of people on this list--if only half of you
give $100, that'd put us well over the mark.  If it passes $10,000 by
Friday night, I'll donate the $100 *and* squeal like a little kid at
Christmas :-)

Enough with the public radio pledge-drive impersonation.  I've
enclosed the press release below.  Have a nice day.

Thanks,

Nat


HOLLAND, Michigan, December 11, 2001. /Perl-Foundation.org/ -- Yet
Another Society, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation for the
advancement of collaborative efforts in computer and information
sciences, today announced the formation of the Perl Foundation as an
internal unit dedicated to the Perl programming language. The
Foundation will consolidates responsibility and authority for the Perl
Mongers users groups organization, perlmonks.org, perl.org, the Perl
Development Grants, the international Yet Another Perl Conferences,
and copyright issues regarding Parrot and Perl 6.

The Perl Foundation is opening with a campaign to raise US$175,000 for
two 2002 Perl Development Grants, to be awarded to Dan Sugalski and
Dr. Damian Conway for the ongoing work in Perl, including development
of Perl 6. The grants will each be a total of US$80,000: US$60,000
stipend, with US$20,000 for travel. US$15,000 is assigned for
administrative overhead.

The first Perl Development Grant was awarded to Dr. Conway by the Yet
Another Society in 2001, when a individuals and corporate sponsors
made it possible. Individual and small companies accounted for nearly
half the US$75,000 award. The list of contributors, as well as the
work produced under the grant, are at http://yetanother.org/damian
.. BlackStar, Morgan Stanley, VA Linux, Manning Publications, O'Reilly
and Associates, and Stonehenge Consulting also made major
contributions.

For more information on The Perl Foundation, Perl Development Grants,
please visit http://perl-foundation.org. To find out more about the
Yet Another Society, http://yetanother.org.


----- End forwarded message -----