[OpenIndiana-discuss] Developer funding model musings

[James Relph]

> I'd like to suggest as a social convention that the initial "license fee" be 10% of system cost and "support fee" after the first year at 5%. Purely voluntary the way tipping service staff in restaurants used to be. No distinction between used or new equipment.  So if you spin up an old SPARC system using Martin's work you contribute 10% of the purchase price.  2% to the general support coffers and the rest to your choice of staff (which in this case should clearly be Martin).

I personally wouldn't like the idea of any specific payment levels set, either by convention or otherwise.  I just know that from a business perspective we're making money off Oi and could actually afford to provide quite a bit (it makes business sense as well).  Others may not be in the same position.

> On further reflection I think there should also be a tally of who's contributed and how much. My assumption is that there are people building systems for clients.  It would provide a means of evaluating how much OI based work they're doing which would be valuable to potential clients looking for a system or support.

There might be a value in having some sponsor pages for donations past a certain threshold, but announcing actual figures might put some people off.

I think we really need to get the devs involved though, to see if they're actually interested in any of this!

James