there are from time to time in-person meetings where OpenWrt developers meet. These events are usually amazing on a social level but also allow intense discussions and focused work on specific projects. I attended multiple OpenWrt related meetings over the last years and wouldn't want to miss them.
Since the core team of the OpenWrt project is somewhat spread all around the globe, the costs to attended a meeting may varies from a train ticket to a 10 hour flight. This cost can often be covered privately, however for some, this may exceeds their current financial situation.
To still allow these individuals to attend in-person meetings, we, as a project, were wondering if the community (aka you) who donates to the project, would see these travel stipends reasonable. The question is important to us since normally donations are used for infrastructure (i.e. servers running forum, Buildbots, etc) and not for individuals.
This question comes specifically for this years Battlemesh but should also be considered for the future. Practically speaking, project members could request travel stipends from the organization managing our donations.
Please share your opinion. Should we use donated money for travel stipends?
It seems the preferred persons are developers, which is cool. As I've said in L3 forums, the funds may be best served to support the travel of those with the farthest distance to attend - aside from the suggestion to consider as least one meeting in another region of the world.
Do we have any developers from the Americas or the Far East who might most benefit from this proposal?
I don’t have a strong opinion (and probably not entitled to one since I do not donate funds), but is there such a surplus of donated funds that spending on travel could be justified over and above infrastructure spending? Was travel expense listed as a potential use of donated funds (would a donor feel abused if their funds paid for travel when they believed it would be used for core purposes)?
EDIT: the donate page does indeed mention “travel support for meetings”.
I think about the appearance of the spending after it is all over. Did the travel spending tangibly advance the project, support the morale and commitment of the core developers, or was it only entertainment?
Is there a way to solicit earmarked donations specifically for events like these?
It’s a tricky subject for sure and the transparency in the decision making process is appreciated.
Well to make use of those money we have to follow all the SFC regulations.
And to quote some. You MUST use the most cheap flight booked 2 weeks before the event. No expensive things. So just to reassure you really can't abuse those money for ""Premium VIP - caviar lunch"" travel as the request will be denied.
For the distance consider that Europe train system is FUN. As soon as you cross a country rail system became incompatible so Flight is really the only option even if someone for example goes from Italy to France (just an example)