Re: Irony

[Steve Litt <slitt@troubleshooters.com>]

On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:06:44 -0400
Charles Kroeger <ckrogrr@frankensteinface.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 11:50:02 +0200
> Tom H <tomh0665@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Debian isn't as special as you think, at least not from this
> > perspective.
> 
> Everybody earns money and needs money in this development.
> Organizations like Debian go forward by people with jobs volunteering
> time and expertise. I knew for instance in Amarillo, Brad Hughes,
> when he lived there. He was a kid that was working as an electrical
> contractor's apprentice. He came to one of the few LUG meetings we
> had in the late 1990,s and demonstrated Black Box. and helped us
> installed it on our big desktop computers. He wasn't paid to do that
> but I suspect it helped get him his job at Trolltech. (QT) 

A guy from GoLUG in Orlando maintained a Free Software Blackberry app
for years. Then one day, based on his Blackberry expertise, a Silicon
Valley company hired him.

One other thing: I think the most prominent way that I, and most
others, get paid is by using the Free Software, both the stuff we
wrote, and other peoples' stuff.

I use VimOutliner every day (which, for unfortunate reasons, I might
need to fork). I created VimOutliner in 2001, and licensed it GPL2. A
bunch of people came along and improved it far beyond any improvements
my capabilities. My "pay" was having the fastest outliner a
touch-typist could ever have, with basically all the features I wanted
(because those few other guys didn't put in, I did). Every book I've
written since 2001 started out as a VimOutliner outline.

Here are some of my writings about the free software author's "pay":

* http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/200310/200310.htm

* http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/free_software_philosophy.htm

In this email my comments are relevant to how free software developers
are rewarded, and should not in any way be interpreted as an
endorsement of Capitalism, Communism, Meritocracy, or any other
politically motivated method of organization.

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance