[ale] OT -- Questions about how to get funds for open source

[jim.kinney at gmail.com (Jim Kinney)]

Hmm. Maybe it's just me but volunteer my time, sure, put in my cash to get
me from my place to speaking/demo place, depends on amount and how much I
like doing the talk.

I do a beer talk at DragonCon. The time and materials I bring have a real
cost to me. 15 gallons of homebrew has an ingredients price plus time and
resources. I enjoy actually doing the talk(/show/performance) and feedback
has been it's well received (and not just for the free beer). The 18%
Monster beer was $130 for the 3 gallon batch I brought. The Blind Toad Stout
last year (12%) was $145 for a 5 gallon batch (and a damn fine batch of ale
it was!). My typical outlay for beer is between $200 and $300 for the 1 hour
(that goes for 2+ hours) talk.

However in the past the Con provided a free 4-day pass for me and my son to
get in and spend more $$ buying gaming stuff and attending robot wars and
other things we like. Last year they did not even provide a one day pass for
me to get in on the day of my presentation. Will I do it again? It's
unlikely as I spend way more on beer parts than the cost of x2 4 day tickets
4 months in advance.

<snark>DC "leadership" is OK paying real money to has-been actors from
"Happy Days" and can't toss a free pass to a science track speaker who can
PACK a 350+ person room every year.</snark>

My wife does volunteer speaking on behalf of NASA/JPL (also shows up at DC).
She has a fixed distance beyond which she just won't travel. A school wanted
_her_ so the PTA picked up the tab for gas and a hotel room for her and the
kids had a blast.

If you're being asked to present outside of a reasonable post-talk drive
home, ask for a place to sleep from the receiving group and/or OpenSuSE.
It's fair. It's often more fun to be put up at the home of the organizer
than a hotel anyway. But it's also VOLUNTEER work and it's OK to say "no"
when you just can't afford the cash outlay.



-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
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