D-etractions A real world programmers view on D

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:54:33 -0400, Joseph Rushton Wakeling  
<joseph.wakeling at webdrake.net> wrote:

> On 28/08/12 00:28, SomeDude wrote:
>> I wish Walter went on kickstarter to get public funds allowing him to  
>> hire a
>> couple of full time developers.
>
> Yes, but you have to be cautious about things like that.  Having people  
> paid by the project to work on things can demotivate the efforts of  
> other contributors.
>
> There is another project I have some connection to where one of the  
> major contributors, a freelance developer, started soliciting donations  
> to enable him to dedicate work time to the project, with in particular a  
> promise that if more than a certain threshold could be raised, he'd be  
> full-time on it.
>
> The effect of this was decidedly ambivalent, with several project  
> members feeling they didn't contribute to the project so that other  
> people could make money off it.  It's not clear that the extra time he  
> dedicated was worth the loss of those other contributions.
>
> It's a different thing if some 3rd party comes in and says, "OK, we're  
> going to pay some of our staff to work on this project."  But having the  
> project itself select certain people to be paid, or having project  
> members solicit donations in this way, can be problematic.
>
> At the very least you'd need to define the parameters and expectations  
> quite precisely, so that people can see where it does or doesn't overlap  
> with work they might have contributed as volunteers.

Um what?  If someone wants to solicit donations in order to work on D,  
there is *nothing* that we can do to stop that.

What do we do, reject that contributor?  I think that's a much worse plan  
of action.  D needs all the help it can get, and if someone can only  
contribute full time if he gets paid, and people are willing to pay him,  
GREAT!

I fail to see how this story has any moral except, "some people hate  
money".  Which really isn't most of us here.  Myself in particular, I have  
very little time to work on D because I have a full time job so I can  
support my family, and a paying side gig.

-Steve