Plea for money, development proposal

Hi,

I've been one of the more active developers and project leaders in the
past and tried for a few years living off doing work for LilyPond,
financed by voluntary contributions.  During the best periods, I have
been able to break even, meaning that I managed raking in subsistence
levels of money (less than minimum wages) on top of rent and health
insurance.

The problem with this kind of financing is that it ends up being very
unfair: those who actually are invested enough into LilyPond to
contribute and to read about work on it tend to be those who themselves
invest significant amounts of time and effort into it, and taking
substantive amounts of money from people who are actually doing the kind
of work you want to get paid for feels like stealing.  Indeed, the
biggest contributors in that regard have ended up being mostly identical
with biggest contributors to LilyPond in other ways.

Now my current financial situation is dire, to say the least, and the
social security system of Germany shows a lot of systemic cynicism.
More at the bottom.

The bottom line is that I need money, and partly because of past work
done on LilyPond that I could not really afford.  But partly because
I find it hard to work according to spec, and by now my CV does not make
it easy to find something that would work for me, or rather that would
put me in a position to work for pay.  That is not likely to resolve
within the next month or few.

I got a bank account you can ask about for EUR amounts.  I now started a
(private) Wise account where "people I know" can send money locally
without not too much of transfer costs (non-SWIFT and/or non-EUR
transfers can take ridiculous fee amounts when done by regular banks).
You could use that if you don't want to use Paypal: you'll have to ask
me for details, and that would seem to be a safer option anyway than
sending money based on just a mailing list posting that could be spoofed
from anybody.  If you get a _reply_ from my mail account, that is
somewhat more reliable.

So as to the work: I think I can likely put in work to allow assignments
in \book/\bookpart blocks.  This would facilitate modularizing LilyPond
source.  The syntax changes are easy (but for whatever reason, few
people like touching the parser); the problematic part is scoping.  When
I last was active, Guile modules were an ill-documented opaque affair.
Now that we have migrated to Guile 2+, they are, well, an ill-documented
opaque affair but more consistent and predictably so.

There is a good chance that if I do the original work, any problems
creeping up afterwards are within the purview of what other developers
feel somewhat safe experimenting with.  So even if I do happen to get a
job not leaving me more time for LilyPond, this should not end up being
unmaintanable bit rot.  That would be more or less the deal for next
month.

So that's what you need to know in a nutshell: I am out of money and see
some opportunity for doing LilyPond work.  \book/bookpart scoping should
be good for a month of work at my somewhat ineffective balance of
thinking things through too much before coding.  Contact me if you want
to be part of the monetary solution of those problems.  Or the coding.

And here's about what you don't really want to know (just stop reading
the moment you get bored or disgusted):

Note that there is a probability that after waiting a few years, the
German subsistence system will say "hey, you managed not to die in the
mean time, so apparently you did not need anything in the years you were
fighting for us to fork over some money.  So we are not going to give
you anything retroactively".  But I don't have the option of going into
hibernation until the situation is resolved, and the average time for
getting to a verdict is 18 months.

And things may become worse.

For example, there is "Grundsicherung" which includes subsistence and
rent, and "Wohngeld" which only helps with rent.  You can only receive
one or the other.  It has taken about 8 months until my renewal form for
"Grundsicherung" got rejected.  So I am now suing, all the while getting
nothing.  I have managed to get at least "Wohngeld" and the law says you
can get it retroactively if your "Grundsicherung" Antrag got rejected.
However, you may only use "Wohngeld" for paying rent, so if you already
paid your rent from money you did not have, plugging the resulting hole
is considered "abuse" according to the respective clerk.

I do need to plug several holes, like about a year of backpay of medical
coverage (the health insurer has only recently be notified that
"Grundsicherung" is not paying for almost a year of premiums).

Also you lose your right to "Wohngeld" if you _apply_ for
"Grundsicherung", not if you actually get any.  But without applying for
it for after the time it should have been granted for (that is already
over) according to my court case, I lose the right to get it
retroactively.

The "Grundsicherung" forms for your current means explicitly ask for
"Wohngeld" and the amount you get from there, but you are not allowed to
get any before receiving "Grundsicherung", and handing in the
application is reason to cancel it.

Kafka would be proud.  If you choose to fight for any of your rights,
you lose all of them before the fight even starts.

Of course I understand that you are not supposed to get duplicate
support.  But while the process of getting one is not finished (in this
case because it is still in a court process), one still needs to live.
And it would be no problem to have to pay back any amounts the moment a
different government account retroactively chooses to cover for them.
But forfeiture because of _applying_ for money from a different pot,
never mind whether you get it?  That's just cynical.

So I have quite more insight into the question "why are people living on
the street in Germany?"  I'd be happy not to deepen this insight too
much.  At some point of time, the gears of what is a country with a
purported social security system may grind into action.  But until this
is the case, I'd be glad for your help.  Preferably from those who did
not already invest significantly in me in the past.

-- 
David Kastrup