[OpenIndiana-discuss] Developer funding model musings

[DormitionSkete@hotmail.com]

I don't mean to discourage this dialog, but all of this was discussed two or three - maybe four - months ago on the dev mailing list.  

You might want to go back and look at the archives at the threads about Alasdair's resignation - which basically boiled down to "none of the OI developers want any kind of leader" - and the thread about the Illumos Foundation's offer to set up a fund for OI because someone approached them wanting to make a donation to OI.  That was not very pretty, either.  

I'm not sure what happened about the Illumos Foundation deal, but as a practical matter, the suggestion someone made about putting up a page on the OI site where the OI Developers post what they're working on, and their PayPal or other contact information where people can send donations, is probably the only solution that *might* have a chance of ever happening.

A brilliant, though controversial, leader once wrote that democracies will never work because you cannot ever get brilliant leadership from a collection of mediocre minds.  Good leadership comes from those rare, brilliant leaders that emerge only every so often.

Any consolidated funding solution is going to require some element of structure and leadership, and the OI developers do not seem to be very open to that.  That's not a criticism.  Just an observation.

I, personally, appreciate their efforts very much.  I just think that funding individual developers is probably the best we can reasonably hope for at this time.  It's not as complete of a solution as paying one or more people to work on OI full time; but at least it would be a step in that direction.  

I hope this helps.

fp