As part of its role of supporting the Drupal project, the Drupal Association (DA) offers occasional help in planning and organizing and funding Drupal code sprints.
Code sprints are an important way that advances are made in Drupal development, both in core and in contributions. Sprints are generally self-organized and self-funded: individuals interested in participating communicate with each other, choose a time and place, and get sponsorship as needed for travel expenses, a venue, etc. from their employers, clients, and other sources.
The DA also has a small amount of funds available to provide support for sprints where it has not been possible to find funds elsewhere. The DA's sprint sponsorship budget is very limited - $5,000 in the current year (excluding funds dedicated to drupal.org upgrade sprints) - so we'll only be able to provide a small amount of priority support.
These guidelines cover how decisions will be made to provide DA funding for Drupal code sprints. Note that code sprints can and have happened independently of DA funding; this page is concerned with the situations where the sprint organizers are seeking funding.
Apart from its general sprint support, the Drupal Association may also directly fund development or sprints as needed for the drupal.org websites or infrastructure.
Application evaluation criteria
- Sprint addresses a recognized need in Drupal development.
- Sprint is producing improvements in Drupal core, or a particularly high priority issue in contrib, or drupal.org.
- Sprint includes an action plan for integrating the results into released code.
- Sprint is timed appropriately in terms of the Drupal release cycle (e.g., is not producing new core features during code freeze).
- Sprint has been planned in an open and inclusive way, inviting participation.
- Sprint includes the participation of recognized leaders in the area being addressed.
- Applicants have sought other sources of funding; the DA is covering only a portion of the total cost.
- If the DA recently sponsored a sprint in the same area of development, the new sprint builds on the progress of the prior sprint.
Eligible expenses
- Travel costs that participants are unable to otherwise cover.
- Meeting space costs.
Ineligible expenses
- Pay or stipends to sprint participants.
Commitments and expectations
- Except when specifically agreed otherwise, sprints that have been approved for DA sponsorship are responsible for initial outlays and will be reimbursed following the sprint.
- A sprint coordinator is expected to report on outcomes along with receipts for all approved sponsored expenses for reimbursement.
- Payment for approved expenses will be made in the form of one cheque to a sprint organizers (not various reimbursements to different sprint participants).
Application format
Please provide some brief, quick notes to help us evaluate your request. Point form preferred. When done, please post in the Sprints group at http://groups.drupal.org/sprints. Thanks!
- What's the sprint date and location?
- How does your sprint address a recognized need in Drupal development?
- What outputs are you aiming for? How will they be incorporated into Drupal core or contrib?
- Who is participating? drupal.org user profile links.
- Link to e.g. a groups.drupal.org page where you've been planning, if available?
- What's the total cost of the sprint? And what specific costs would you like the DA to cover?
- If the DA recently sponsored a sprint in the same area of development, how does the new sprint build on the progress of the prior sprint?
- What is the name and contact info for a sprint coordinator who will take responsibility for reporting?
- Are you willing to post a brief follow-up report on groups.drupal.org about the sprint?
Comments
My experience trying to
My experience trying to coordinate funding with the D.A. on packaged install profiles has been far from ideal. I understand that everyone is busy and volunteering time, but communication has been very problematic. Deproduction and Quiddities each contributed $2,500 towards packaged install profiles. The D.A. committed to matching those funds that bringing the total to $10K (the min. amount dww and hunmonk said they needed to make that happen). Getting any confirmation from the D.A. about how to make payments, confirm the match, confirm that the changes would be made on D.O. in a time line that works with each organization's Knight NewsChallenge grant milestones.
Having helped to organize camps and sprints, I hate to say that unless things are streamlined at the D.A. it wouldn't be worth the effort trying to get $$ from them.
Other than conversations before DrupalCon, none of the emails sent to any member of the D.A. involved in this project have been returned since we cut our checks. At this point we are just operating with blind faith that the D.A. follows through. Luckily we aren't strapped for cash, but I'd hate to see an independent developer volunteer to coordinate a sprint and then get no response from the D.A. when they try to get reimbursed.
I can be your contact
We're certainly working to smooth things out in the process and this is (obviously?) a big part of that.
I'll be your contact from now on, if you feel we're not responding fast enough you can knock on my door ;)
Thanks for your continued work here.
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
I apologize...
I apologize if you are having a bad experience and we do apparently have a communication problem. After the Association was brought in I have personally contacted Quiddites (Margaret) and Denver Open Media (Tony) regarding this expenditure. I have another meeting with Denver Open Media (Tony) regarding this expenditure on Friday or sooner if the two of us can match our schedules. I have also spoken with Chad at 3281d Consulting.
Unfortunately I think you and I have not spoken, which is probably part of our communication break-down. At the moment I am waiting a response on a question I have regarding payment methods. We are unable to send checks from Belgium to a U.S entity at the moment, we can wire, pay via CC/Debit card, or use Paypal. I hope to have this soon.
The only other holdup on this expenditure is internal to the project management team and we can take this off-list. If you have questions you may contact me directly and I'll be sure you're connected with the right folks.
I am not at all trying to deflect that the Association has been late on prior payments or is a difficult organization to work with. The Association is not perfect and we are an all volunteer organization, which does me most of us are moonlighting to handle items such as this. I do not offer this an excuse more as a call to those that want to come in and get their hands dirty.
On top of that we are just now beginning to fund small development work such as this and we have had to build processes around it. I'm confident that we have jumped through several of the major hurdles of setting this infrastructure up and the road ahead is smooth. You may not be aware but this is the first major development the Association has funded as partner with the community.
I understand your frustration and we are working towards streamlining all of this.
I'll use this opportunity as a call to action. The Association has recently installed a very boring but extremely necessary piece of software that helps us to track all of our expenses, payables and receivables in a manner that is not locked away at our account's office or in quickbooks. We are trying to ensure that access to financials is nothing more than a click away. This software would also help you and anyone else more easily get a status on funding requests.
Unfortunately we are all volunteers and at the moment are a bit short staffed to concentrate on getting this software setup and populated with the necessary data. If you or anyone else reading this thread now or in the future (2010? contact us, 2011? we can still use your help) please get in touch at http://association.drupal.org/contact and help us put this infrastructure in place.
-Jacob Redding
Greg's involvement has
Greg's involvement has certainly resolved the communication issues. Thanks for helping to move this forward!
Any value from virtual code sprints?
Great to see the Association branching out into supporting in-person sprints. It's obviously great when you can get key people in the same physical space, but I'm wondering how virtual sprints and workshops could fit into the 'good for drupal' mix. Any value in virtual spints?
Lack of 'experts time' still seems to be an ongoing issue, but I think we've only scratched the surface in terms of recruiting the talent/support the community could use. The Open Media Project is still pretty under the radar in Drupal circles, but has the potential to serve as a bridge between the local and virtual communities. http://groups.drupal.org/open-media-project
Off my stream of consciousness soapbox.....haha
Gus Austin
value, yes, potential funding - probably not
For these sprints, there are currently only two things that the DA is considering covering:
In a virtual sprint, both of those costs should be zero.
Of course, value can obviously come from a virtual sprint but they can and do happen already. This funding (like most things the Association does) is about pooling resources toward things which don't happen on their own, or don't happen often enough on their own.
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
This is policy, right?
Thanks Greg -
Based on your feedback and the following guidelines:
The DA may consider funding virtual sprints that directly benefit the drupal.org websites or infrastructure. Otherwise, the funding would only be for general support of good for drupal projects such as the Drupal media sprint. What about something like the aforementioned Open Media project where the DA matched funds for areas that directly benefit drupal.org? Could pooling funds, knowledge, talent, be other areas where the DA could be involved?
Gus Austin
yes, certainly
Where there is clear evidence of benefit to *.drupal.org and the underlying Drupal project which is unlikely to get funding on its own, the DA may pay for some work. It needs a proposal and budgeting and approval, which can take a long time.
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
Good questions
We're working through this stuff. This page isn't official policy, just an initial attempt to set out some reasonable guidelines that we'll try out and refine.
Providing the infrastructure to support Drupal is a key part of the DA's mission, so the DA has allocated funds to things like drupal.org upgrade sprints and commissioning specific priority functionality. The drupal.org upgrade project has generated a huge list of required work.
We don't have a formal application process for suggesting/requesting sponsorship for drupal.org related upgrades. You can always contact a permanent member of the DA and talk about an idea or use the contact form at association.drupal.org.
# Sprint addresses a
# Sprint addresses a recognized need in Drupal development.# Sprint is producing improvements in Drupal core, or a particularly high priority issue in contrib, or drupal.org.
While I support this idea, it looks to me like someone with the association would have to decide whether the sprint falls under one of these categories, and if it does that'd mean that the association would have a direct effect on the code.
This is an excellent point
This is a great point. One way to mitigate this would be to force the Association to only providing <50% of total funding for sprints that do not have a direct effect on *.drupal.org sites. This would provide funding that the sprints need but prevent the Association from have any direct say in the code.
The other way to mitigate this is to create an open review process so that the criteria of what has been chosen is available for everyone to read.
-Jacob Redding
Established some of this during the first meeting
Some of the guidelines were disused during the 'open funding review' for the Media sprint - http://groups.drupal.org/node/28628#comment-97928
It seems like the safest bet would be for the Association to stick with providing general support and specific development funds could come from an other sources. Ideally we could figure out other ways for the DA to support such as participating in joint fundraisers or sharing knowledge and best practices. The Drupal Kata (http://drupalkata.com/), a homegrown GHOP style project learning program, could be one vehicle for this type of collaboration.
Gus Austin
Is this page relevant anymore
I am wondering if this is still a resource for contribution days?