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(g77-295.info)Funding GNU Fortran

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Funding GNU Fortran
*******************

   Work on GNU Fortran is still being done mostly by its author, James
Craig Burley (<craig@jcb-sc.com>), who is a volunteer for, not an
employee of, the Free Software Foundation (FSF).  (He has a web page at
`http://world.std.com/%7Eburley'.)

   As with other GNU software, funding is important because it can pay
for needed equipment, personnel, and so on.

   The FSF provides information on the best way to fund ongoing
development of GNU software (such as GNU Fortran) in documents such as
the "GNUS Bulletin".  Email <gnu@gnu.org> for information on funding
the FSF.

   To fund specific GNU Fortran work in particular, the FSF might
provide a means for that, but the FSF does not provide direct funding
to the author of GNU Fortran to continue his work.  The FSF has
employee salary restrictions that can be incompatible with the
financial needs of some volunteers, who therefore choose to remain
volunteers and thus be able to be free to do contract work and
otherwise make their own schedules for doing GNU work.

   Still, funding the FSF at least indirectly benefits work on specific
projects like GNU Fortran because it ensures the continuing operation
of the FSF offices, their workstations, their network connections, and
so on, which are invaluable to volunteers.  (Similarly, hiring Cygnus
Support can help a project like GNU Fortran--Cygnus has been a
long-time donor of equipment usage to the author of GNU Fortran, and
this too has been invaluable--see Note: Contributors.)

   Currently, the only way to directly fund the author of GNU Fortran
in his work on that project is to hire him for the work you want him to
do, or donate money to him.  Several people have done this already,
with the result that he has not needed to immediately find contract
work on a few occasions.  If more people did this, he would be able to
plan on not doing contract work for many months and could thus devote
that time to work on projects (such as the planned changes for 0.6)
that require longer timeframes to complete.  For the latest information
on the status of the author, do `finger -l burley@gnu.org' on a UNIX
system (or any system with a command like UNIX `finger').

   Another important way to support work on GNU Fortran is to volunteer
to help out.  Work is needed on documentation, testing, porting to
various machines, and in some cases, coding (although major changes
planned for version 0.6 make it difficult to add manpower to this area).
Email <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> to volunteer for this work.

   Note: Funding Free Software, for more information.