[PD] The economics of Open source

[Jonathan Wilkes]

--- On Sat, 3/19/11, Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca> wrote:

> From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>
> Subject: Re: [PD] The economics of Open source
> To: "Bernardo Barros" <bernardobarros2 at gmail.com>
> Cc: "pd-list" <pd-list at iem.at>
> Date: Saturday, March 19, 2011, 8:34 PM
> On Sat, 19 Mar 2011, Bernardo Barros
> wrote:
> 
> > Hello , Mathieu! Well, I did not refer to
> implementation of new features, but the maintenance of that
> code that already works, fixing bugs.
> 
> Ok, so, basically, buggy software gets rewarded for
> requests to fix bugs. Bugless software is not rewarded : it
> does not pay. Therefore we are encouraged to put enough bugs
> in there so that we get money. Nevermind the
> high-reliability ideals.
> 
> (Of course, don't let my comments prevent you from
> contributing money. I'm just trying to say that some
> assumptions about funding may encourage the wrong things and
> cause strange compensations.)

The points you raise have a lot to do with a clear and 
sustainable long-term funding model for Pd, and probably nothing to do 
with any specific individual's actual donation in and of itself.  
Any reasonable way Bernardo decides to fund Pd will no doubt be a good 
thing. :)

Actually now that I write that, I'd say that even implementing a _bad_ 
funding model regarding Pd isn't such a big deal at this point.  If the 
only way for the general public to fund Pd was to donate to a "bug 
squashing fund", it's quite unlikely that enough money would be generated 
to create an incentive for corruption.  At most there would be a big 
enough pot to squash a bunch of existing bugs, after which whoever is in 
charge of the effort could say, "Hey, we squashed a lot of bugs, now let's 
encourage people to donate to other things, too."

-Jonathan

> 
> 
> _______________________________________________________________________
> | Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ----
> Villeray, Montréal, QC
> 
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