Re: Using money to fund Debian: social issues
Em Segunda 09 Outubro 2006 13:54, Martin Schulze escreveu:
[...]
> Paying developers of a project directly or indirectly by the project
> is not healthy when the project consists of more than the paid
> developers.
I think there's a point Joey's not directly addressing, even if he sees its
consequences. Until now, all this thread has talked about individual
motivation of developers. About that, the point I want to make is that the
dunc-tank project already is a factor of discouragement, at least in the case
of Joey.
But the funding of developers has other consequences. In the event this idea
fully succeeds (and I think it's really possible), we may think about
a "core" debian team, most of them in key positions, who are funded by
Debian. At certain moments, they will face (necessarily, I think) the
following dilemma: they have to choose between freedom and the continuity of
the project. I mean, they will be really indispensable to the project,
they'll know it, and they'll have to take decisions about contenting or not
the main donors. There's no jealousy or evilness here. If the donors stop
donating, there's no more project. They will 'naturally' tend to satisfy the
donors, probably in little changes (as I firmly believe most or all DDs will
rather resign than accept an abrupt change towards non-freeness). After all,
when there's really no other way, Debian ships non-free parts - and I'm not
saying it should not do so (non-free is not the Debian distro, but it's
shipped by Debian; think firmware, license texts, Debian's trademark etc.). I
don't know if it'll destroy the project, but I'm pretty sure there'll be
consequences. You (IANADD) can try to guess if they will be only minor, you
can just try to see what will happen, or you can try to stop it now.
As a sidenote, as for the social implications, I agree with those who said
there's little difference between debian funding developers and other
employers doing so. But there's a difference, in quantity. If Debian
officially starts collecting donations to pay developers, it can succeed very
well, enough to form a core team, as stated above. It's true that hp or ibm
could suddenly enroll 50 DDs (or 500), with no further task the improving
Debian, and those 50 would be likely in the same situation of the
debian-funded guys. But I think that would be seen at least with caution by
the other DDs, and it would not be the case for debian-funded DDs.
Friendly,
Tiago Saboga.
(very happy debian user. Thanks for the great work!)
(I am not a native speaker)
Reply to: