Re: How to leverage money to accomplish high impact Debian projects
>>>>> "Russ" == Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
Russ> This is a deep structural problem that we're going to struggle
Russ> to solve with modest changes such as increased efficiency to
Russ> try to make our scaling more sublinear, or increased
Russ> recruitment (of still primarily unpaid volunteers). There is
Russ> more happening than before, and we're struggling to keep up,
Russ> let alone get out in front and lead. This is due,
Russ> fundamentally, to a lack of resources, and it's hard for me to
Russ> see how we can close that resource gap while still being a
Russ> volunteer project (nor do I want us to stop being a volunteer
Russ> project). For example, one obvious way to get a similar
Russ> scaling of resources would be to change from being a volunteer
Russ> project to being an industry consortium with paid staff so
Russ> that we can be the recipient of that increased corporate
Russ> spending. But I highly doubt most Debian Developers (myself
Russ> included) have any appetite for that.
I'm engaging because you seem to have ignored an option that is obvious
Russ> at least to me given the discussion this all came out of.
I'm wondering if you have any interesting thoughts so I'm asking.
I'm not trying to be confrontational or to disagree with anything
Russ> you've said, just wondering if there are things we all can
learn from considering more.
I'd like to ask you to look at the elephant in the room.
This conversation came up specifically because we were talking about an
organization loosely associated with Debian paying some Debian
developers.
Yet, you didn't consider any of the middle options in your
analysis--only the option of staying effectively all volunteer or going
all industrial consortium.
do you have any thoughts on the middle options like having industrial
consortiums that we work with so that Debian developers who are
comfortable in that model can pursue that?
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