23 Mar
2006
23 Mar
'06
4:21 p.m.
Hi Jaromil,
Thanks for the link. I'm aware of community finance like this operating
within certain ethnic groups in the UK, and also through credit unions.
However I'm not aware that any free software projects are cross-funding
each other in this way - the collaboration seems to be mostly at the
technical level, not at the financial.
Cheers!
Daniel
Mark
hosted 10 debian developers in his big villa with swimming pool
I don't doubt that Mark lives in some comfort, but that's not my point.
Globally speaking, pretty much all software developers are members of
the elite, so riches are relative.
still we're having one man show and is about
the rich one in the whole project.
Given that Mark's alternative was to *not* invest in free software
development, which most millionaires probably don't, I don't think
that's a serious objection.
for us western people it should be even more clear
after what happened
in New Orleans: apartheid still exists
Sure, but Mark made his money from digital certificates, not directly
from colonial exploitation. You can even be born into a rich, colonial
family and still do good work. And I think George Bush has more
responsibility for New Orleans than Mark does.
then my position regarding mister Shuttleworth's
philantropy is that
devolving money in opensource to make your own brand of it is not a
relevant "humanitarian" effort for someone living in such a context;
I think you'll find that The Shuttleworth Foundation is Mark's
philanthropic project:
http://www.tsf.org.za/
I recall him saying that he's not yet sure whether Ubuntu will turn out
to be philanthropy or a business investment.
plus i have strong doubts about the "single rich
benefactor" way to
sustain free software.
Here I agree with you; it needs a broader base of funding. State grants
aren't too reliable either. However there are a lot of very rich
individuals in the computer business, and if they want to put a few
million dollars towards paying free software hackers then I don't have a
problem with that. Sure, the funding may not always follow the agenda of
the users - I am deeply uneasy about the {Mozilla/Google/Chinese
government} triangle for instance - but it's for the users to deal with
that.
If you've
got suggestions for a better way of distributing resources,
I'd be glad to hear them. Is there a middle way between bounties and
having hackers under contract, i.e. in proper jobs?
my vision of it is more related to "self-sustained" communities.
i explained myself in a roundtable held at piksel.no last year and Janet
Casey wrote an interesting text about our discussion here:
http://www.sustainablesource.net/?p=15