Re: Funding GPL projects or funding the GPL?

[Rik van Riel]

On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 27, 2002 at 12:42:14PM -0300, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > On 27 Jul 2002, Federico Ferreres wrote:
> > > It works for Microsoft and they make crappy software which is also
> >
> > You want us to make crappy software with silly restrictions, too ?
>
> Cute.  How about we ease off on this guy a bit and ask ourselves if he
> doesn't have a point?  It's not clear that he has the right answer but
> it is blindingly clear that pure open source business models don't work.

> ... but they have a zillion apps that lawyers and doctors and other
> non-geeks use every day.  Where is the money for those apps? It's sure
> as hell not coming from "donations".

Agreed.  What we need is funding for the development of those
things which aren't already taken care of by the community.

In the areas where open source software is doing well, there
already is funding by interested parties (companies, government,
universities, ...).

Some other areas won't ever get the funding through donations,
simply because people will freeload whenever they can and try
funding development as much as they can.  We've seen that with
BitKeeper and you had to "tighten up" the license a bit in order
to make sure development stayed funded.

In short, I believe the voluntary donations aren't needed in
most areas people would donate to and won't make enough of an
impact in the areas where they are needed.

regards,

Rik
-- 
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