Perl Ecosystem development group or Advisory board for TPF?

In relation to my my grant request several people asked what exactly would companies join so let me try to clarify it here.

Companies would pay an annual fee to TPF. The money goes into the bank account of TPF and initially budgeted to cover the expenses of the events group and my fee. The events group is participating at events, showing Perl and Perl related projects at the Perl booth, giving related talks, etc. My fee covers the time I spend on developing relationships with companies.

Companies that pay the annual fee would in return become part of a group, we can call it either Perl Ecosystem Development Group or maybe even better Advisory Board of the TPF. Each company can delegate 1-3 people (maybe based on company size?). They don't get voting rights in the TPF but it will provide them a way to communicate with each other and with the Perl community.

They might get voting rights within the group/advisory board.

The GNOME Foundation has an Advisory Board. On that page you'll find the roles and responsibilities of the Advisory Board Members.

Directions of perl 5 development

For example I can envision that the members would discuss the directions that Perl 5 should take. We collect the ideas and present them to the Perl 5 Porters. The Perl 5 porters can then discuss the ideas. The ones that seem to be reasonable for them as well get either implemented - if someone has the tuits for that - or they can build a grant requests around the items. Seeing the price the Advisory Board members can decide if they want to finance the features or not and pay out of their own pocket.

The same can go for CPAN modules.

This will allow the financing of features in perl that the Perl porters also feel useful.

Update

In October 2010 the Perl Ecosystem Group was established.