Drupal and the Knight Foundation (part two)

Posted on March 7, 2008 by agentrickard

We had a very successful BoF on Wednesday. The goal was to discusss how the Drupal community would manage our relationship with the Knight Foundation.

For those who were not at DrupalCON, here are the basics:

-- The Knight Foundation (KF) provides funding for open-source development, products and innovations that are in line with their core goal: improving communities through the free exchange of news and information.
-- KF needs help from the community to review proposals that are specific to Drupal.
-- The program will be ongoing, with the deadlines and length of projects to vary on a case-by-case basis.
-- KF handles all the project management and grant management issues for accepted proposals.
-- The Drupal community will try a two-step process for applications.

1) Submit an idea for community consideration.
2) Ideas that get community support will become project issues in a special project queue. These proposals will get serious review from the community in preparation for passing to the KF for final evaluation.

Let me stress that this is not a contest; it is an ongoing program that is an extension of work that KF is already doing. They are looking to the community to help, since we agree that Drupal and KF share some common goals, particularly about the purpose of open-source software and the desire to enable open communications.

There will be some additional detail forthcoming over on g.d.o in the KF group. For now, you can see the meeting minutes from the BoF.

In summary, here is where we stand on the process:

-- Moshe and Josh are working on some CCK and voting widgets for use in submitting proposals via g.d.o.
-- Gary Kebbel and his team are working on some language so that we all know exactly what types of projects they wish to fund.
-- I will be creating a project page on drupal.org.

We are going to have a check-in on or about March 21st, to make sure that we are on track with the work to be done. At that checkpoint, we will create the next round of tasks -- which will be focused on three aspects:

-- Defining and communicating the goals of the program.
-- Marketing the program to the community.
-- Lining up volunteers to help manage the process.

I have to say that I am very excited about the potential here. And I think that the members of the KF who participated in the BoF were equally excited to see how the community responded and began to self-organize.

As a final note, let me stress that this will be an open process. We are striving for complete transparency regarding the proposals and the process for recommending them to the KF. If you were not at DrupalCON and want to participate, come on over and join the KF group. Everyone is welcome.