[Qgis-psc] Follow-up: supporting community members impacted by Covid19

[Andreas Neumann]

Hi,

Like Nyall and Vincent I also think that the grant process is not well 
suited for such a proposal. For several reasons: we probably don't want 
to discuss in the open personal financial situations, but it would be 
necessary to do that in order for the voting members to decide. As 
stated, it would  be really hard to come up with proper rules, etc.

There is one thing that might work:

As you can see in the budget 
(https://www.qgis.org/en/_downloads/QGISBudget2020.pdf), there are 
certain tasks that we want to get done as a project, such as:

- improve our website (10k in the budget)
- bug fixing
- documentation

These are the three topics where I think QGIS.ORG could help out a 
skilled person who also has time due to fewer contracts within the 
COVID-19 crisis.

I still think that we should only do this with proven community members 
and people up to the task, in order to use  the QGIS.ORG funds 
efficiently. Otherwise, I think it would be a misuse of the funds that 
our sustaining members and donors gave us in the assumption we spend the 
funds wisely. Many countries, at least most European countries have a 
proven welfare system that helps people in the need.

So what I propose is: if one potential contributor would have skills and 
times and would like to work for QGIS.ORG in one of the above three 
areas, the person should get in contact with one of the PSC members 
privately. No need to disclose this in public. We can then see what we 
can do to both spend our funds wisely and potentially help an affected 
community member. That might work for 1-2 people, but probably not more.

In addition: QGIS is also a network of QGIS companies around the world. 
Affected QGIS contributors might want to ask other QGIS companies around 
the globe if one of them has open tasks and not enough human resources 
to deal with them. We mostly work digitally anyway in our community and 
it might be possible to temporarily work for a different QGIS/FOSSGIS 
company.

Greetings,

Andreas

Am 07.05.20 um 11:15 schrieb Vincent Picavet (ml):
> Hello,
>
> On 06/05/2020 16:40, Anita Graser wrote:
>> Since our meeting yesterday ran over time, we decided to take this point
>> to the mailing list:
>>
>> The idea, raised by Tim, was if we as a community could help members who
>> are impacted by the Covid crisis. Community members who are having a
>> hard time getting paying work right now could be encouraged to apply for
>> the grant programme. These applications could receive preferential
>> treatment when it comes to voting which applications will be funded.
>>
>> Obviously this idea is at an early stage and not every step is clear
>> already. The call for grant proposals as published right now is open
>> until May 24th:
>> http://blog.qgis.org/2020/04/26/qgis-grants-5-call-for-grant-proposals-2020/
>>
>> Looking forward to hearing what you think!
> I was about to answer more or less like Nyall.
>
> I can understand the good willing behind such idea, I really doubt that we can
> make it happen in a fair and transparent manner.
>
> There are more than 2.5 billion people confined in the world, and with a global
> economic crisis to come, I think we can say that everyone is impacted.
> Some more, some less, but to draw a line somewhere would lead to judge very
> complex and sometimes very personal situations, with a large heterogeneity in
> situation. As for the amount we are talking about, I guess it is not worth it to
> make any difference without a lot of headaches.
>
> Should we want to help people impacted by the crisis, then making a donation to
> an organization specialized in helping covid-10 crisis would probably be a
> better option.
> Or provide opensource tools useful for modelling of geospatial phenomenon, like
> virus propagation ;-)
>
> Regards,
>
> Vincent
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