Aall the money IAVIT has ever gotten has come from knowing someone. Most
corporate foundations don't even take unsolicited grant applications.
You have to get a sponsor in the company who can write the application
for you. And you kind of have to allow them to drive the project. There
may be exceptions, for example it's possible that Microsoft just gave
the nvda project a lot of money. But I suspect it was the same kind of
deal. I've had a small amount of success getting money from Lions Clubs
andjust marching into a local business and asking for money or
resources. At first I felt that was humiliating. But I realized it
shouldn't be so I forced myself to get over it. I can now just pick up
the phone and ask for money and it doesn't bother me at all. Actually, a
talent like that shouldn't be wasted, I should run for Congress.
PS: Maybe we should take this discussion to talk@xxxxxxxxx. Anybody not
on that list can subscribe by sending a message to talk-subscribe@xxxxxxxxx.
--John Heim
On 04/27/2017 06:15 AM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
I agree with you, but when you say schools, you mean the government.
They provide the majority of funding schools use for that sort of thing.
I did not think of a grant writer. That sounds like a good place to start.
--Kelly Prescott
On Thu, 27 Apr 2017, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
Tony Baechler here.
Your comments again emphasize the need for a nonprofit organization. I
wouldn't worry too much about the money. Funding will happen once the
word gets out. Oh, it takes time and it won't be immediate, but it can
and will happen. What we need is a grant writer. The government issues
grants. There are many private companies who put lots of funding into
Linux. Most major projects have outside funding. If Mozilla had to
survive only on donors, they wouldn't. Debian gets lots of money and
servers from HP Enterprise and many other companies. You're right that
the Windows guys get their money mostly from the government, but not
all. Schools are a lot of the market.
As I said before, start young. Get on social media where teens and
young people are and show them that there is another choice besides
Windows and the Mac. Even if they aren't programmers, they are
potential users. One of the reasons why the Apple II became so
successful was because it was given to so many schools. How many of
you grew up on the Apple II in the classroom? There was a company
called Raised Dot Computing. They wrote and sold Bex and other
programs. They were a commercial business. When they started, they had
no money. All of their newsletters are online and well worth reading
if you care about the history of technology for the blind. They hired
a grant writer. After getting several grants, they were able to fund
development of their software, like Braille Edit which became Bex, a
program to make AppleWorks accessible and eventually Mega Dots for the
PC. The point is it can be done and it wouldn't be that difficult,
especially with a good social media presence.
On 4/24/2017 4:56 AM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
Kelly Prescott here.
The reason Windows has better accessibility, is that the government has
largely funded it. FS and all the other players get a large
percentage of
there purchases from VR dollars which is the good old tax payer!
So while a private company developes it, Uncle Sam really foots the
bill!
I only say that to show how hard it is to get accessible software built
and
maintained.
I am working on a UEFI boot loader that talks from bootup. I am
going to
release it as open source.
The thing is: I have to feed me and mine durring this effort.
This means that I work on borring normal projects most of the time,
and my
boot loader when I have spare time.
I think there are several developers me among them who would do this
full
time, but if there is no money in it, then we must continue to work
on our
normal jobs/projects until we either have time to work on it or we find
some
good funding to pay for it.
Unfortunately, I do not know of good ways to obtain lots of money for
part-time developers. There is only so much free time and free work
to go
around.
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