PerlMonks, Mongers, Damian, and the Perl Foundation

[blakem]

Press Release From Perl-Foundation.org:

HOLLAND, Michigan, December 11, 2001.

-- 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. To donate to the Perl Development Grant Fund, please visit http://donate.perl-foundation.org. Your employer may match a donation if you inquire.

-Blake

[blakem]

Reposted with permission of the author - Nathan Torkington

The Perl Foundation is more respectable name for the Yet Another Society to use when it gathers money for the Perl Development Grants. In 2002, YAS hopes to sponsor two people: Damian Conway, to continue his most excellent technical and ambassadorial work for Perl; and Dan Sugalski, to accelerate development of the Parrot and Perl 6 projects. http://www.perl-foundation.org/

"But," you say, "the economy's in the crapper! How will you ever raise that kind of money?" I'm glad you asked. There are two answers: you, and your company.

A huge number of individuals contributed to Damian's 2001 grant. I may be a softie, but I literally tear up when I think about how it shows the depth of community we have. We'll need individual support again for 2002. The economy is brutal right now, and I know some of you are out of work. The good news is that there's no lower limit to donation: if you can only give $10, that's $10 more than we had had before, and we're $10 closer to our ultimate goal. If you can give $100, or $1000, that's ten or a hundred unemployed people whose money we don't have to feel guilty for taking. :-)

I just gave $100, which I suspect will make my wife yell at me, and I wish I had more to give. Give what you can (and remember--it's tax deductible!). I just started a challenge of sorts, see use.perl.org for details, which I'd love you to participate in. Make me cry like Sylvia Plath at an onion farm. :-)
http://www.perl-foundation.org/

Many companies helped last year, Blackstar being the stand-out contributor. We need many more companies to help this year. "The Perl Foundation" is a name your manager can feel comfortable writing a check to, so let's take advantage of that. If your company uses and relies on Perl, and would like to give back in a tangible way, please approach your boss about contributing. Politicians toady up to corporate interests for the same reason we need you to talk to your boss about a donation--it's quicker and easier to get one place to give $5000 than to find fifty people willing and able to give $100.

Enough. Attached [well, above actually -blakem] is the press release about the Perl Foundation. Thanks for reading this far.

Nat

-Blake