On Sun, Jan 07, 2007 at 09:45:48PM +0000, Michael Fothergill wrote: > Dear Debianists, <Debian article about Dunc-tank, et al.> > Is this article accurate in its reporting? > > I am a bit puzzled by it. For me, if I would buy CDs or DVDs from a vendor > or make a donation to Debian etc and some of the money was spent to pay > some of the developers I would not bother about it. > > If most people have full time (often IT or academic) jobs and also make a > free contribution to Debian this is commendable. But if the size of the > community grows to the point where it can pay some people to be full time > contributors to the project this is a sign of success to me. Charitable > organizations pay some of their members and so do religions. So do > political parties. > > But most of them are not trying to make a profit. I would say the > community is smart enough to see who is making a creative contribution > irrespective of whether they are being paid for it or not. > > But what do I know.......???? > > Your comments are appreciated. Hi Michael, Debian like all FLOSS projects have volunteer contributions. Each person contributes for a different reason. Some contribute time, money, code and expect not to get recognition, some do. This recognition can be in the form of money, notoriety, 'cred', reputation, responsibility, etc. So when one person gets money for their contribution, someone else thought that their contribution which did not get funded was less valued and that they personally were less valued. Again, Debian has 1000+ developers and a million contributers. It depends upon what scale you put your contribution as to whether you felt 'less valued' by Dunc-tank. If you consider that FLOSS is contributing to the digital commons, then the digital commons always wins, and all people are the beneficiaries of Debian's work. cheers, Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | 'under construction' | | `. `' Operating System | go to counter.li.org and | | `- http://www.debian.org/ | be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org |
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature