Cycle 5: Astroquery maintenance (Ginsburg)

[keflavich]

This is the same request I proposed last year and had approved as a 3-year project, but per the guidance on the astropy slack, I'm re-submitting fresh for 1-year.

See also #382.

[eteq]

@keflavich - while this does certainly relate to some roadmap items, it looks like you didn't explicitly list any - you may want to add that (I gather this was just adapted from last cycle, but we updated the template this cycle to add a prompt to state which part of the roadmap the FRs connect to)

[keflavich]

Thanks for the correction. I've added information about my role in relation to the roadmap items.

[kelle]

Please react to this comment to vote on this proposal (👍, 👎, or no reaction for +0).

[eteq]

The Cycle 5 funding request process has been hugely successful! On the downside, that means our funds are severely oversubscribed. Even after the Finance Committee and SPOC have taken into consideration community feedback/voting and alignment with the roadmap, there are still more funding requests than we can afford in 2026.

We would like to stretch the budget as far as possible, and to fund as many activities as possible, while making sure the Project remains volunteer-driven. Hence, we would like to know if this project will still meet its deliverables if minimum your budget is reduced by 25%, 50%, or 100%. Or if there’s some other minimum, feel free to specify that instead.

As a reminder, there will be more funding for 2027 and we expect the Cycle 6 call for 2027 funding requests to begin in the Fall of 2026.

Thank you for your engagement and understanding as we continue to optimize our funding and budgeting processes and the balance of volunteer vs funded work! (@keflavich )

[keflavich]

A reduction by 100% would preclude my participation in significant further development work, which means that I would not support progress toward the milestone goals (platform integration/testing, spectrumDM, and learn tutorials). I may continue maintaining what I touch, but I would need to seek alternative sources of funding, which would likely lead to delays. That said, I'm not going to abandon astroquery or astropy.

A 50% reduction would also ensure delays, resulting in some activities being dropped - i.e., either work on platform integration or on spectrumDM would be delayed a cycle.

A 25% reduction would be similar to a 50% reduction, but one of the targets will only be partially met.

I do not have time-specific deliverables, just activities to work on, and a broad version of this is that, with reduced funding, I'd focus only or more on features that are directly relevant to my current active research project and would be unable to prioritize astropy priorities.