12 Dec
2007
12 Dec
'07
6:20 p.m.
On Wed, 2007-12-12 at 07:24 -0500, drew Roberts wrote:
*** This may just be the key idea. Now we get funding not just from the
limited number of people who use Free Software to make music, but from the
much wider number of people who are willing to buy music.
Alas, fundamental error here. The set of people you're talking about is
the set of people who are willing to buy a *particular set of music*.
If there is anyone on the list who has ever sold enough CD's to pay even
a cheap-cost-of-living-nation-resident programmer for one year, please
do tell. Two such developers? I'll be amazed. Three? I'll probably
conclude that you're lying :)
Raising money to pay for s/w development so that programmers can work
fulltime costs a LOT OF MONEY. Even if the programmers are holed up in
Guatamala or Nepal. And if they are in the first world, which at this
point (for all kinds of reasons) most FOSS developers are, it costs even
more than that.
Its really fantastic that the linux audio community has been as
financially supportive of some of its developers (me! i hope others
too), but please lets not kid ourselves. The fundraising that is being
talked about pays for a feature or two. It doesn't pay for programmers
to work full time on stuff, and for professional, complicated programs,
that is, alas, precisely what is needed. Even the kernel gets this,
albeit via a different mechanism.
--p