Friday, August 12, 2011

Accepting Travel Grant Applications for EuroBSDCon 2011

Calling all FreeBSD developers needing assistance with travel expenses to EuroBSDCon 2011.

The FreeBSD Foundation will be providing a limited number of travel grants to individuals requesting assistance. Please fill out and submit the Travel Grant Request Application by September 5, 2011 to apply for this grant.

How it works:

This program is open to FreeBSD developers of all sorts (kernel hackers, documentation authors, bugbusters, system administrators, etc). In some cases we are also able to fund non-developers, such as active community members and FreeBSD advocates.

(1) You request funding based on a realistic and economical estimate of travel costs (economy airfare, trainfare, ...), accommodations (conference hotel and sharing a room), and registration or tutorial fees. If there are other sponsors willing to cover costs, such as your employer or the conference, we prefer you talk to them first, as our budget is limited. We are happy to split costs with you or another sponsor, such as just covering airfare or board.

If you are a speaker at the conference, we expect the conference to cover your travel costs, and will most likely not approve your direct request to us.

(2) We review your application and if approved, authorize you to seek reimbursement up to a limit. We consider several factors, including our overall and per-event budgets, and (quite importantly) the benefit to the community by funding your travel.
Most rejected applications are rejected because of an over-all limit on travel budget for the event or year, due to unrealistic or uneconomical costing, or because there is an unclear or unconvincing argument that funding the applicant will directly benefit the FreeBSD Project. Please take these points into consideration when writing your application.

(3) We reimburse costs based on actuals (receipts), and by check or bank transfer. And, we do not cover your costs if you end up having to cancel your trip. We require you to submit a report on your trip, which we may show to current or potential sponsors, and may include in our semi-annual newsletter.

There's some flexibility in the mechanism, so talk to us if something about the model doesn't quite work for you or if you have any questions. The travel grant program is one of the most effective ways we can spend money to help support the FreeBSD Project, as it helps developers get together in the same place at the same time, and helps advertise and advocate FreeBSD in the larger community.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Semi-Annual Newsletter Available

We are pleased to announce the publication of The FreeBSD Foundation's 2011 Semi-Annual Newsletter. In this edition:

  • Letter From the President
  • Fundraising Update
  • Development Project Updates
  • IPv6 support in FreeBSD and PC-BSD
  • Implementing support of GEM, KMS, and DRI for Intel Drivers
  • Resource Containers Project
  • Feed-Forward Clock Synchronization Algorithms Project
  • Five New TCP Project
  • libcxxrt C++ Runtime Available Under BSD License
  • Conference Updates
  • AsiaBSDCon 2011
  • BSDCan 2011
  • 2011 Grant and Travel Grant Recipients
  • NYI Testimonial
  • Foundation Update
  • Financials
You can help to support the FreeBSD Project by making a donation to the Foundation.