[PD] no licensing, no money?
CK
chris at lo-res.org
Tue May 17 01:54:19 CEST 2005
hi max,
I read:
> I'm curious to hear your point of view to this: the university asked me
> to review the list of software they want to order for the department.
nice at least they _ask_
> the university? I guess you all agree that the money should rather be
> spent in PD development. but since there is no license to aquire the
> university can't ask companys to give bids on this deal. how can open
> source projects handle this? any suggestions?
well we are facing a similar problem here but (our it center at least
recently donated some money to more traditional projects (I don't ex-
actly remember what it was but along the lines of postfix, spamasassin
etc...)
For example, I invited tom schouten for a lecture to give something back
(while of course leeching some of his energy on the way ;), the travel
was paid by a small festival run by some friends.
a few options you might consider:
* donations/paypal -- relatively hard to convince the buerocrats but
it can work and I suspect when it has been done
once already it gets easier next time.
* inviting devrs -- usually rather small amounts that can be spent
on guest lectures but a unique opportunity for
students and staff to relate faces to email
adresses and to talk about future plans.
* commissioning -- again tough with the buerocrats but a good way
to give stuff back to the community (if you can
explain why the result should be gpl/bsd style
licensed so the uni can't make any - rather
virtual anyway - profits from it)
* docs/faqs/examples -- actually you commit a lot to the community if
your students work on such things and release
the results to the general public.
* conferences -- setting up a mini festival / conference is also
a nice way to show your support (see also the 2nd
point) and might help to gain some publicity out-
side of your department - should make it easier
at some point to convince the buerocrats ;)
just my 0.02EUR
regards,
x
--
chris at lo-res.org Postmodernism is german romanticism with better
http://pilot.fm/ special effects. (Jeff Keuss / via ctheory.com)
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