[pytest-dev] Mozilla Open Source Support

[Raphael Pierzina]

Hey there!

Dave is right about me being interested in applying for the MOSS grant. I have done some work for it last year and chatted to a few pytest contributors offlist for feedback.

I would like to pick up the work on the documentation [1] that Brianna, Andreas and myself started during the developer sprint in June, 2016. However I have come to realize that having a full-time job, I unfortunately don't have the time to revisit all of the docs, make sure the contents are up-to-date, move them around if need be and making sure any resulting pull requests get reviewed and merged in time.  

In December, I applied for a month-long Open Source Fellowship with Changelog and Hacker Paradise [2] to work on this. Unfortunately I was notified last week, that they had received a huge number of applications and that I was not selected for the fellowship this time.

Notwithstanding the above, I was hoping to use the MOSS grant to allow me and anyone who is interested to work on this effort full-time for a month or longer, depending on the amount we want to request.

I had not applied for the last round and I am not planning on doing so for this round either. The reason being, that the MOSS wiki clearly states that they "have a reasonably strong preference for funding legal organizations rather than individuals representing projects" (see [3] Project Criteria). I have looked into registering a non-profit in the UK or a Verein in Germany, but neither seems to be trivial being a German citizen living and working in the UK and members all over the globe. Also: "Recipients are responsible to determine the tax implications of receiving an award, based on their respective countries' tax laws and compliance requirements.".

I am aware that Holger took care of finances and these kinds of things in the past using his company, which allowed us to run a very successful fundraiser and more. However going forward, I believe setting up some sort of legal entity for pytest and related projects would be the right thing to do. It would allow us to share responsibilities and explore other ways of raising money for the project in the future (crowd-funding, stickers + t-shirts, donations etc.).

As to applying for the MOSS grant in general, I think it's crucial to have a good plan for what we would like to work on and also who exactly would like to be involved. The objectives need to be achievable and specific and people would need to be happy to commit to them. I personally think, it's important that such a project will be a success, otherwise we might cause damage to pytest's reputation and it might be harder to receive similar grants in the future. I also don't want this to be unfair to the Mozilla Champion. Afterall they have to vouch for us.

I think it's great that you, Thomas, use pytest and want to improve it! I suggest that you have a look at unresolved issues on the tracker and help fix some of them or give feedback on open pull requests. This will probably increase the chances of being awarded with the MOSS award, should you apply, and even if it doesn't work out as hoped it will be great to have you as a contributor!

Best,
Raphael

[1]: https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/wiki/Docs-refactor
[2]: http://www.hackerparadise.org/blog/2016/11/17/open-source-fellowship/
[3]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/MOSS/Foundational_Technology

> On 21 Feb 2017, at 08:51, Dave Hunt <dhunt at mozilla.com> wrote:
> 
> I believe Raphael has applied for a MOSS award to work on the documentation. I’m happy to support this, or likely any other application.
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave
> 
>> On 20 Feb 2017, at 21:41, Thomas Lotze <thomas at thomas-lotze.de> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I just noticed that the next deadline for applications for Mozilla Open
>> Source Support awards will be due soon, at the end of the month. Also,
>> pytest (as well as tox) is listed among the projects Mozilla considers
>> Foundational technology which it supports through a dedicated awards track.
>> 
>> https://wiki.mozilla.org/MOSS
>> 
>> https://wiki.mozilla.org/MOSS/Foundational_Technology/Projects_We_Use
>> 
>> I wonder whether the pytest project should apply for an award. This question
>> has been brought up on this mailing list before, at least last summer by
>> Florian Bruhin. The discussion back then didn't lead to a conclusion,
>> more-or-less open questions being what well-defined project objective to
>> propose, who could work on it, and, not the least important, what Holger
>> thought of it as the money would likely be handled by his company. Florian
>> Schulze was the only one who said he was available full-time at the time.
>> 
>> Now, I'm aware that I've not been known as a pytest contributor so far, but
>> I've been using pytest, I want to help improve it in turn, and I'm interested
>> in and available for working on open-source Python projects on the basis of
>> funding such as the MOSS awards. This is why I'd like to re-raise the
>> question of applying for such an award, and ask you who else might be
>> interested in joining the work and what would be the best objectives to have
>> funded.
>> 
>> "Reducing the number of bugs" would be useful but possibly too much of general
>> maintenance to be eligible for an award. There are a number of enhancement
>> proposals in the tracker, some of which will be more urgent or helpful to the
>> project than others, or might lend themselves better to being implemented by
>> one or two persons rather than, e.g., during a sprint.
>> 
>> If there is any interest in applying for a MOSS award, I'd be happy to work on
>> an application during the next few days. But if there is a feeling that
>> pytest shouldn't apply for an award, or not this time, I'd be equally
>> interested in discussing that and possibly preparing for next time. I'd
>> particularly like to ask the opinions of Holger, and of Dave Hunt, who is
>> listed as the project's contact within Mozilla on the above-mentioned list.
>> 
>> Thank you! Cheers,
>> Thomas
>> 
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>