Who pays for all this?

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 02:24:45 UTC, Shammah Chancellor 
wrote:
> On 2014-10-05 03:33:36 +0000, Walter Bright said:
>
>> We're not really limited by lack of funds, but more by lack of 
>> focussed effort. If anyone wants to contribute funds, probably 
>> the best use would be to add bug bounties for bugzilla issues 
>> that they find to be neglected. The bounties don't really 
>> compensate at professional rates, but they do work as a nice 
>> "thanks" to those who donate their valuable time.
>
> I've placed a couple of anonymous bounties, but I personally 
> think it's a bad way to get directed focused effort.  A 
> democracy of people trying to get what they individually want 
> done through small donations?

Yes, that is the way democracy works, what is the problem?  The 
only benefit from a foundation is that they can make decisions 
for the community that individual donors may not have the 
information to make, including a co-BFDL like Andrei with his 
specific expertise.  Well, if you want to follow Andrei, just add 
on to each of his bountysource bounties, and if you want to 
follow the community, just randomly add to existing D 
bountysource bounties or to all of them.  It would be nice if the 
wiki had links to the D bountysource projects though:

https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/383571-d-programming-language
https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/283332-ldc
https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/455080-gdc

I notice that the top issue is at $1k now, not bad.

> There are many languages which have grown more quickly than D 
> (despite being less interesting) because they have a foundation 
> where people can donate, or some company, which provides for 
> the core developers.   I'm not saying that having a non-profit 
> will magically generate money, but there are a few companies 
> who use D out there who just might be willing to donate 
> non-trivial sums of money to further development if there was a 
> non-profit to see that the money was put to good use.
>
> Just to name a few:
>
> Python: https://www.python.org/psf-landing/
> Node.JS:  http://www.joyent.com/
> Perl: http://www.perlfoundation.org
> Linux Core Developers: 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation
> Ruby Core Developers: https://www.heroku.com (A subsidiary of 
> Salesforce)

I agree with you that a company would help, though I don't see 
much gain from a non-profit, especially if it's as much work to 
set up as Andrei says.  If you want your money "put to good use," 
I don't see how your bounties on bountysource would be abused.  
Those bounties or individually contacting Andrei or Iain about 
funding the project expenses they've detailed strikes me as a far 
more direct way to contribute to the community than throwing 
money at a foundation and forgetting about it.  Yes, you won't 
get to deduct tax from your contribution, but that's the least of 
our concerns.