[Mediawiki-l] jobs.mediawiki.org & fundraising

[Jack D. Pond]

Rob,

Please, no bricks - I really do hate bureaucracy but it is the burden under
which I must struggle. 

It turns out making an outright donation is very difficult in my position
(I've already tried that route).  On the other hand, your suggestion about
funding initiatives is easily accomplished under the auspices of maintenance
and support (something I CAN fund).

Being a government, what I can do is create a specific work order to which
you can bill based on project, assigned staff (one or more, but must be
designated at the time of acceptance), and billing rate.

We could issue the work order for specific amounts (time and materials not
to exceed).

Here's the part that may not be so attractive.  Because this is a government
contract, the developers would actually have to keep timecards and invoice.

There would be no liability on the part of MediaWiki because at time and
materials, the only actual deliverable is hours of service performed.
MediaWiki would have to certify that the invoiced number of hours were
performed in keeping with the work order.

The easiest path would be for you to put up an article listing several
initiatives (eg., TimStarling's filerepo, or even on-going maintenance of
certain MediaWiki functions) from which we could select and fund portions on
a time and materials not to exceed.

The infrastructure MediaWiki would have to have in place would be:

# Ability to define work activities (believe me, you don't want us doing
this for you, leaves control in your shop)
# Ability to process work orders
# Ability to invoice
# Ability to document work performed by developers (rudimentary timesheet
process)
# Ability to accept payment and process against invoices (being able to
write checks in $$ versus sterling would be very helpful).

I think this is a vehicle many corporations could also use that would make
sense to their controllers, especially those who are using MediaWiki as a
collaborative Web 2.0 project tool.  Is this too much hassle?


Jack D. Pond
CIO, Montgomery County, PA
(610)278-5200
 
 
 
 
 
 
"The percentage of mistakes in quick decisions is no greater than in
long-drawn-out vacillation, and the effect of decisiveness itself 'makes
things go' and creates confidence", Anne O'Hare McCormick(1882-1954)