Re: about GNU Hurd

[Gianluca Guida]

On Jul 31, 2007, at 7:50 PM, Michael Heath wrote:

> I don't think so. Google's SoC is designed to help finance one  
> student to work on a specific task within a project. With a Hurd- 
> specific fund, you would be able to to choose specifically where to  
> spend the money for it to be the most beneficial to the Hurd. You'd  
> also be able to finance work by developers who may not be elligible  
> for SoC. It's a completely different system.

What I think Michael (Banck) meant here, or at least the reason why I  
agreed with him is by reading his mail is: "let see how much  
supportive the hurd community can get to people effectively working  
on a paid, time-based schedule. And let be sure to find the right  
guys to do that." If our students fail, that will mean that before  
throwing other people money the Hurd community will need to organize  
itself better, be clear on what the goals are, getting rid of some  
funny hatred between people, etc. If you know the Hurd community, you  
know what I mean here.

Personally, but I might state the obvious here, I don't think money  
can be a good motivation by itself for working hard on a project. But  
it will definitely help a motivated hacker to get the job done with  
less real-life pain, in case the reason the hacker is not hacking is  
due to immediate need for money.

Most of the people I know in the Hurd community are either at  
university or already have a job and contribute to the Hurd in their  
spare time (I am exactly in the middle of this rough generalization  
right now, but I am a well known slacker). To both of these kind of  
people you can't just ask to work six full months on a project,  
because they just can't get rid of their current life. Anyways I am  
generalizing here, I just wanted to point that IMHO money, while  
appreciated, aren't the immediate and easy answer for 'the Hurd  
problem'.


Just my opinion anyways,
Gianluca