On 16077 March 1977, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
There are quite a few software projects that have hired staff to helpsmooth the internal working of organizations, I know at least of Djangowith its fellowship program: https://www.djangoproject.com/fundraising/#fellowship-program
The current resources of Debian means that we can confidently hire at leastone or two fellows that would work under the direction of the DPL and not be in troubles for many years.
Leaving out the detail of Debian paying someone for work, this has one more thing that can backfire hard, as I just could witness in an (entirely unrelated) org: That those hired ones got more powerful than the actual leader. Simply by being there continuously, doing ground work, that the actual leader(s) over time didn't want to do. With time a big bunch of the work just got done, mostly leaving the radar of the leader then, and so they ended up controlling much, the leader being a figurehead in the end.
There sure are ways to work against this, but for the first few leaders it was just comfortable, and then on and on the next ones got less interested in that particular work, and it all went down. And it appearently is quite hard to get back in control, even if you want to, if you have the whole admin setup working against you, as they want to keep what they have.
-- bye, Joerg