Here is what I’d like to discuss. This is not an agenda and it could go very differently, but right now that’s what I have in mind.
- Acknowledge the status quo: Design Discussion: ActivityPub support + ForgeFed vocabulary did not make progress in over six month.
- A 5K€ grant did not trigger an immediate reaction, which probably indicates there are not many people available for freelance / bounty work on Gitea
- A grant application is an order of magnitude more money and it may allow people who are currently busy to pause their activities for a few months and work on federation in Gitea
- The ideal grant application would fund at least two person full time during six months and be submitted by @cjs and @zeripath because they have an excellent track record on go-fed & Gitea respectively. But it could also work with two other persons, provided they have enough time to learn.
- My incentive is not to be funded: my work is already funded for fedeproxy. My motivation is that fedeproxy would greatly benefit from a native implementation of federation in Gitea.
- My contribution is to be responsible for writing a sensible grant application (similar to the fedeproxy grant application)
- There is one condition to my involvement everything in the grant application process and after it is submitted is done in public (it starts here), 100% transparency. To get an idea of what I mean, see how the fedeproxy idea came to be, how the grant application was prepared down to detailed accounting of income an expenses.
- I see three successive steps for the grant application to stand a chance:
- Two person willing and able to execute the work are interested (this is where we are now)
- A generic description of the project is written, using NLnet and NGI DAPSI guidelines and template as a reminder of what is required in every grant application
- Whenever a grant opportunity presents itself (which may be months from now), use the generic description to fill out the application
- Writing a generic grant description that both makes sense and matches the grant application constraints is a lot of work. It took me no less than two weeks full time for fedeproxy and I expect it would take me up to four weeks for go-fed / Gitea because the subject is more difficult. Reason why I’m preparing well in advance.
- Adapting the generic grant description to an actual call is two full days of work (for me… other people may do it faster but I’m not good at doing things quickly)
- My next action item could be to draft a generic project description (see the one I wrote for fedeproxy for an example of what I mean).