Our inaugural meetup was a success, small as we are - we had a fruitful run of discussions and idea exchanges highlighting the options everybody was aware of - so far so good. However we soon hit on the notion that came back several times in the discussions, that not everybody actually wanted funding - that in fact, the leg up of monetary donation could lead to a noose of changed responsibilities, stepping away from code, and being at the mercy of perceptions of public entitlement.

Beyond "beer money" for good work, funding seems to be desirable essentially when there is a drive to create a business around it - and creating a business model, and managing an organisation. For some of course, the project is a passion, and also a livelihood, and when the technology has a large community or is so key but mostly unseen, some developers could stand to see more genuine support from the companies that leverage their work.

I posted a full write-up on our website.

The planning for the next meetup is underway, and in the meantime I would like to call for suggestions or requests for topic coverage and talks. If you would like to give a talk on a topic that would be insightful or informative to an audience of open source developers and users, please do by all means ! You can contact us via twitter @ScotlandOSUM or through Meetup.com and messaging the organisers.

If you know of a meetup or event that could use a boost, give us a shout - we're always on the lookout for open source events and organisers in Scotland to track and promote !

And if you woudl like to help us continue to host events (venue costs and food/drinks costs), please consider backing us here on Open Collective :-) The expense policy can be viewed on the expense form, so you know what it will go toward.

-- Tai