Re: KickStarter for Debian packages - crowdfunding development
On Thu, 2013-06-13 at 22:42 +0200, Simon Richter wrote:
> In various experiments, introducing a tangible reward for something
> people did of their own accord then actually reduced their motivation
> unless the reward was repeatedly offered; this is something I feel we
> should avoid here.
The reward must only be for something if the person was not likely to
have been able to do that without it. Donations to people are more like
windfalls than rewards since their irregular nature and disconnected
situation has not been studied well. Perhaps controlling the way
winfalls are granted would improve the physiology.
Then, there is what happens when money is collected into a foundation
and the foundation then pays a person to work on a feature or some
boring and tedious work. This depends on who controls the foundation and
who feels jealous of money because they see it as a reward instead of as
an enabler. If the foundation is controlled by all contributors and they
come to consensus on who should be paid for what work, then it's easier
to see why other contributors would be happier. More research is needed.
How ever the human mind works, we MUST solve the economic problems is
Free Software. It's imperative that we not shy away from finding the
right policy to get non-technical users involved in monetary ways.
Otherwise, the only people with any power will be those that do the work
and those that employ the workers. The users will continue to have none
and that's unacceptable to supporters of Freedom.
Martin Owens
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