On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 09:56:33AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > > In the context of an experiment to > > find out whether paying people to do Debian work can be useful, it'd > > certainly provide some useful information as to whether there are better > > alternatives for encouraging contributions and getting things done. > The release was the only metric put forward for the experiment, > despite various requests. Actually, I believe you'll find that that wasn't even put forward as a metric for the experiment. As per [0], it wasn't even the primary goal of the payments. One of the major arguments against "changing the rules of the game" is that paying some people and not paying others will discourage (some of) the people who don't get paid from contributing. When people are reviewing this experiment and working out whether to try similar things in the future, whether within Debian or elsewhere, I'd expect one of the things they'll consider is whether the people who claim to be demotivated now were really going to contribute much more otherwise. This is, IMO, a fairly unique opportunity to demonstrate just how much contribution is being lost due to jealousy or unfairness or whathaveyou. Obviously, there's no requirement for anyone to take advantage of that opportunity, but if I thought paying people was a bad idea even in principle, I'd be making the most of this opportunity to prove that I was right. Actions speak louder than words and all that. Cheers, aj [0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/10/msg00027.html
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