Re: Bug Resilience Program of German Sovereign Tech Fund

Hi Paul,
while I wish that there would be better options, this seems to me the 
most fitting open source support program for Automake & Autoconf I have 
came across in the last decade.
To me, the prospect is much brighter. If people learn Autotools, they 
face difficulties, which they may address once overcome. This lowers the 
barrier for new users and contributors.
I propose to give it a try. There is some scientific program and I am 
pretty sure they will evaluate the cost-effectiveness.

Bye
Christoph


Am 07.06.24 um 23:44 schrieb Paul Eggert:
> On 6/6/24 15:20, Christoph Grüninger wrote:
>> I think we should apply for the Bug Resilience Program with their 
>> Direct Contributions option. This is not funding, rather a company is 
>> hired to do the mentioned things. It is easier to apply for and if 
>> granted should improve the situation.
> Would it be a cost-effective? There are maybe ten people in the world 
> who have current expertise to work on Automake development, all of them 
> are busy, and unless I'm missing something none of these people work for 
> the company in question.
> 
> Although the previous sentence (including that "ten") is just my guess, 
> I hope the point is clear. A worry is that (unless the resources we're 
> talking about are substantial) most of the effort spent by the company 
> will go toward training employees, and only a fraction will go toward 
> actually improving the bug resilience of Automake and/or Autoconf.