Cycle 5: Streicher - Debian and Ubuntu ecosystem maintenance

[olebole]

No description provided.

[eteq]

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

[keflavich]

@olebole Does your request roughly reflect the effort you've been putting in in previous years?

[olebole]

@keflavich This is roughly what I did in the last years for the packaging itself, ~8-12 hours per month.

[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! (@olebole )

[olebole]

I think this is hard to estimate realistically. The point here is that the Debian/Ubuntu support is combined volunteer/funded, and I currently only put those activities on the bill where I can clearly estimate the needed time (by checking my commit history), other activities (like bug reports or participation on discussions) remain unbilled, and I also just cut the bill when the estimate is reached.

This would also work with a lower budget (I feel very committed to Astropy, and would not stop working if I get less money), but it is hard to say for me "it would also work with half the money". To make a number, I could probably say that the Debian/Ubuntu maintainance will not be in danger if there would be a 25% reduction in budget.

The other point is however that there is already a contract for the next year, based on the extension of the current one, signed by NumFOCUS covering the money this PR is about, and I somehow planned with that money already.