(This page continues the topic of Funding GNU Fortran.)
Funding is assumed to mean donations towards the improvement of g77, by researching, specifying, designing, and implementing requested features, then integrating them into the official g77 code base. It is not assumed to mean payment upon simple completion of a patch to implement the requested feature, or upon release of a version of g77 that supports it, unless otherwise specified.
There have been two offers for funding: $500 for the Cray pointer support, and $1000 (unsure) towards the implementation of Fortran 90.
Work on GNU Fortran was being done mostly by myself, the author, James Craig Burley. I'm a volunteer for, not an employee of, the Free Software Foundation (FSF). 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".
To fund specific GNU Fortran work in particular, the FSF might provide a means for that. But, 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.
Nevertheless, 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 for my use, and this too has been invaluable. See the "Contributors" node in the g77 documentation for more information. Note that Cygnus also sells non-free, proprietary software.)
Currently the only way to directly fund my work on g77 is to hire me for the work you want me to do.
(Since I've received only one, though generous, donation during 1999, the first since early in 1998, I've decided this "dry spell" indicates a low degree of interest in g77. So I'm no longer doing significant volunteer work in this area.)
An 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 0.6 have made it
difficult to add manpower to this area).
Email
gcc at-sign gcc.gnu.org
to volunteer for this work.
C ----------------------------------------------------------------------- C ----- GNU Fortran (g77) ----- C ----------------------------------------------------------------------- C PROGRAM G77 C COMMON/QUICKY/QNEWS,QWHAT,QWHO,QHOW,QWHERE,QRLEAS,QSTAT,QWANT, 1 QY2K,QALIGN,QFUND,QF2C,QMAIL C REAL BOF C WHAT() = 2. * 3.14 * QWHAT C READ *,STATUS,NEXT CALL GIMME(FUNDS,*999) PRINT *,'Goodies For Contributors!!' GO TO (999),NEXT CONTINUE INQUIRE (UNIT=99,NAME=WANTED) CALL WHO(CRUNCH) 999 STOP 3HWHY END C C ----------------------------------------------------------------------- C C Copyright (C) 1999 James Craig Burley C C Last modified 2002-05-14 C C -----------------------------------------------------------------------