D-etractions A real world programmers view on D

Steven Schveighoffer schveiguy at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 30 10:52:24 PDT 2012


On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 11:21:06 -0400, Steven Schveighoffer  
<schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:27:39 -0400, Joseph Rushton Wakeling  
> <joseph.wakeling at webdrake.net> wrote:
>> Simon Phipps (former Sun Open Source chief, now on the OSI board) has  
>> written an interesting article about the dynamics of money in open  
>> source projects, worth reading:
>> http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/09/should-you-donate-to-open-source-projects/index.htm
>
> I will check it out, thanks.

An interesting point of view, and I can see how paying someone could be  
misconstrued.  If Walter was given money to hire people, and he hired  
certain already-active members of the community, it might leave some  
thinking "why them and not me?"  One thing I think would pose a large  
dilemma is who do you pay?  Someone who is very active in contributing to  
D may not be able to contribute more, simply because there are just so  
many hours in a day.  I'm amazed sometimes as to how some people do so  
much work on D!  This means we're just handing out bonuses without getting  
much back.

But then would you pay someone like me, who has contributed very  
sporadically?  Maybe it makes it so I can contribute more, but it's almost  
like rewarding me for being less active!

Paying someone in the community is like giving a company more money to  
develop a project faster, but instead they just pay their existing staff  
more.

If, however, Walter simply just hired two developers *outside* the  
community, and added them to the project, it would be a net gain for  
everyone.  Two previously uninvolved developers who could make the  
development go faster.  Perhaps that's the only real way to fund a project  
like this.

I agree with Mr. Phipps that the best way probably to fund an open source  
project is to purchase from a company who benefits from the language  
itself, and let them know why.  Then they have an incentive to make  
contributions ensuring they continue to receive that revenue.

I don't find this much different than paying someone who volunteers via  
donations, except that you aren't getting any benefit via service, just  
better language.

Thanks for the interesting read!

-Steve


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