[PD] The economics of Open source

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Mar 20, 2011, at 1:32 AM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:

>
>
> --- 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. :)

I say if anyone wants to sponsor the work of someone, then its really  
a matter of who they want to sponsor.  That is fair.  I don't think I  
should get a cut if someone else is sponsored to do Pd-related work.

> 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



On the idea of a general fund for people to donate too, I thought it  
would be nice to have Pd-extended have a donate nag button, and all  
that money would go to the next PdCon.  The more money that PdCon  
organizers have means the more people they can sponsor to come, the  
more events possible, etc.

.hc



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