[OpenIndiana-discuss] Developer funding model musings

[Reginald Beardsley]

--- On Tue, 1/29/13, Udo Grabowski (IMK) <udo.grabowski at kit.edu> wrote:

> From: Udo Grabowski (IMK) <udo.grabowski at kit.edu>
> Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] Developer funding model musings
> To: "Discussion list for OpenIndiana" <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>
> Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2013, 10:50 AM
> On 29/01/2013 17:36, Reginald
> Beardsley wrote:
> >
> > I'd like to suggest as a social convention that the
> initial "license fee" be 10% of system cost
> 
> UAHHH ! Then we should have stayed at Oracle......
> 
> Really, if you solve a problem for one system,
> why should someone pay for the other 99 identical systems
> (think of big clusters) ? Just because he has to money to
> buy them ? Think of all the EDU/R&D institutions who
> simply
> don't have the money for such exorbitant service fees.
> 
> Remember, OI was started as a community effort, not to make
> money. If "commercial" support is offered, it's a good
> thing,
> but we should not try to mimick the unacceptable behaviour
> that companies like Oracle show.
> 
> Have a look at the old service catalog that Sun was
> offering,
> that was something really reasonable and affordable, for
> both
> sides. It had hardware-only services, cheap per workstation
> support, bulk service fees, site service fees for an
> extended
> period, etc. Also consider per incidence fees, based on
> real
> effort needed to solve the problem.
> 
> Avoid copying business models made for banks and assurance
> companies....these are not the clients of OI.
> -- 

Where I live we have an 8.25% sales tax.  It's also NOT voluntary.  I'm spending $800US to build an OI based file server.  I certainly don't find contributing $80 for OI development exorbitant.  Oracle would want $1000 which is more than the hardware cost and I don't think support for the N40L is even an option.

If you're prepared to spend $100k on hardware for an institution and not prepared to spend $10k to support the software, I think you're being unrealistic.  You'll spend many times that for in house staff and likely not do a good job of sharing the results w/ the community because of the extra work of distributing it.

But if you have a better model for providing financial support for OI, let's hear it.  Not arm waving about what's fair, but practical details such as how to raise enough money to employ even one person full time for a year working on OI.  

Oracle has abandoned the small business and technical workstation markets because they can't make money at it.  If OI goes away for lack of support, I'm going to be forced to either FreeBSD or Linux.  I happen to like Solaris enough to be willing to pay for it voluntarily.

Please remember, Sun went out of business.  That's not a compelling argument in your favor for copying their business practices.

FWIW I abandoned an open source seismic processing code I'd supported for ~15 years because I couldn't get any support funding. For 10 years it was part of my day job, but completely unpaid for the last 5.  Lot's of people use it, but no one wanted to pay anything.  Once it sank in I wasn't doing anything w/ it myself, I decided I wasn't working on it anymore unless I needed something for myself.  I'd spent hundreds of hours fixing other people's problems w/o even "thank you" in far too many instances. 

You're getting paid and complaining that 10% is too expensive.  Martin isn't getting paid anything except a few small donations and he's making things work.  You don't like 10%. Then decide what you do like and send it to Martin.  Better yet, get him a job at your institution.

Have Fun!
Reg