PyPy dev here. I would be interested to explore the ideas what can be done to improve our funding situation. We seem to have moderate success in those fundraisers, but nothing REALLY huge.
There are plenty of companies that could benefit from PyPy doing well though. How many python servers do youtube / reddit etc run? With some investment in PyPy they could reduce their on-going costs. Youtube could easily dump $100k into the PyPy project, so what's stopping them? (I suspect the answer in that case is that Google just aren't interested)
I'm in a startup that doesn't have money to invest in PyPy, but if we we had more cash we'd definitely look at putting some into PyPy (though our use case is the hairy NumPy side of things).
I guess in the case of PyPy it's maybe less interesting to individuals but maybe there's some way of reframing it to make it interesting.
In a way, I'm sort of the target market here, because I use python all the time and I haven't donated to PyPy. So why haven't I donated (other than being quite broke because I'm starting a business)?
I think part of it is the urgency. There are 3 specific campaigns you're running [1] to get funding, along with funding for the general project itself. And the campaigns themselves are great - you have good overviews of the issues that you're solving, a realistic approach and a proven track record of being able to execute. But I don't know when those campaigns started and what the cut-off date is. They sort of feel ongoing and it feels like there's no loss in not donating right now. Compare with something like kickstarter, where you have a date by which if there hasn't been enough funding you may end up losing out on something really cool.
Sorry for the rather rambling brain-dump, but maybe there's some useful perspective here.
[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/214379695/micro-python-...
[1] http://pypy.org/tmdonate2.html http://pypy.org/py3donate.html http://pypy.org/numpydonate.html
One of those things can be to provide a very clear road-map tied to donations and then follow up on it. That's what so powerful with these crowd funding campaigns. People feel like they are making a difference though at times they are essentially buying something.
I don't think you necessarily have to "compromise your values" either. You're probably already limited by money, so add some planning and just be honest about it. "With this amount, this will happen" etc. As always of course "under-promise and over-deliver".
That's mainly for individuals though. Companies are somewhat the same, but they want things that fit into their budget.
Several linux distros have much of their customization features written in python.
Microsoft seems to be trying VERY hard to change their course and attract more developers back to their platform(s). They're clearly willing to make strategic investments in open source projects.
I've found that PyPy works wonders for the vast majority of python code I've thrown at it. In order to close remaining gaps, funding is key.
RPython/pypy is kind-of a competitor to the CLR (especially with DLR) so unless it's for a CLR/DLR backend I doubt Microsoft would show that much interest.
I may be silly but why don't you contact a professional lobbyist ? Those people know how to get money out of those big corps and could maybe be used for this good cause.
The marketing angle could be also interesting. The Big G would pay a little to appear benevolent to the community. Heck, the new Microsoft (which use Python alot) would pay to continue building their new image.
And ask the guy from LuaJIT, if he can do it...