http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=70828


in reply to Is PerlMonks economically viable?

I have mixed feelings on Perl Monks getting solvent. I am new to the monestary, however I do have to say I am a frequent visitor here. Perhaps we should look for corporate sponsorship in alternative methods. I am afraid that if we do start to get solvent, the issues that are going to arise- what do we do with the left over $? Who decides how the $ get spent? As a linux user, it amazes me the number of companies that send me free distributions- some of which I say are way over priced if paid for.
Maybe our best bet would be to get an ISP to donate the space/bandwidth (probably like it is now). Most ISP's do make charitable contributions and that is an avenue that we should look towards. Perhaps we have to put a banner up that says this site "graciosly" hosted by CrummyIsp.net.
Code-a-thon's were mentioned, perhaps that would be a viable way- we get some prises and the most ++ answer wins a t-shirt. Why not, runners pay to enter races, and they can on almost any other day run the same area for free.
A donation system seems plausible, IF and only if it is purely anonymous. I dread looking at posts that start with as a LARGE fiscal supporter of this site... I already think we are all Large fiscal supporters of this site, by donating time around here, that is time that we could be billing someone for.
Perhaps a series of donations from open source companies or companies that support open source?
I think the biggest obstacle in getting this support will be the fact that it is a recurring issue, it is not as simple as sun/ibm/dell donating us a server, Perhaps we do need to add a series of small banner adds (ugh I hate adds) to get the sponsorship. Perhaps we should just look for a colo facility and figure out what that would cost.

I guess this is just a little spooky- think what would Perl Monks be like if things were to change-