Bonjour,
Although I will not receive any direct funding in 2022 to work on forgefriends, the company I work for can pay my salary to work full time on forgefriends, for about six months. And I will by able to use my own money to finance the other six months.
The money obtained by my company to pay for my salary comes from two sources:
- CIR which is a program run by the French government to incentivize companies engaged in R&D. The application process is not trivial and I started working on it back in May 2021 and it was accepted late October 2021. This covers years from 2021 to 2023 included.
- A NLnet grant awarded in September 2021 extends to October 2022. It has parts that are unrelated to forgefriends but also contains parts related to developing a format to exchange forge data which intersect with forgefriends.
My intention is to look for additional funding (I’m just passively collecting information now) late 2022 so that I can keep working full time on forgefriends in 2023.
I think many Free Software developers who need to make a living while being passionate about a project are in a similar situation: they manage to get indirect funding. It is comparatively rare to be in a situation where direct funding is obtained (such as DAPSI in 2021 for forgefriends or NLnet for Gitea in 2022).
But I believe it is equally important to disclose these so other people involved in the project know there is a personal financial gain attached my work.
Cheers