Re: [Fsfe-uk] Funding Open Source

[Paul]

Hi,

> > > Not if the development costs are lower. The choice is pay massive
> > > amounts and hold the copyright or pay substantially less and have it
> > > GPL. 
> > 
> > Again, it doesn't always follow.
> 
> Nothing ever always follows and it takes time for people to learn
> different systems. We will have to survive many setbacks in the process
> of education people but in the longer run people are like sheep.Once the
> penny drops for some others will follow.

Well, we can already see this with the worldwide take up of Linux. It's
not for nothing that states in the Americas (North and South) as well as
a good chunk of the Africas and Far East are flocking to a non-MS
platform. According to www.linux.org even big business are turning their
backs on MS.

> > From bitter experience, companies who
> > put anything in always want something out and rarely settle for the
> > qudos.
> 
> Companies have to pay their employees and their shareholders. Companies
> already pay a lot for brand awareness which is really a form of kudos.
> The trick is to be able to sell them an idea of why they should spend
> their money on a particular type of kudos. Unfortunately most FLOSS
> developers are not salesmen so at least initially their success rates
> might not be high.

This is why programmers should be kept to just that. I've worked as a
salesman in a camera shop (it was my first job) and I really was awful
at it. Why? I didn't fib about the quality of the goods. We had a 6%
commission from camera company A and 3% from company B. B's products
were vastly superior in every way to A's (and about 50 quid cheaper to
boot). However, we were pushed to selling company A's products. While
that made me a better person to ask for advice from, it didn't go down
well with the bosses. I learned then that to be a success at sales, you
had to be able to lie through your back teeth.

Okay, that's from just my experience and I'm sure that Ian (and lots of
others) didn't have to sell their souls to be as good as they are now.

It's a case of each to what they do best. If you're better at
programming and expressing ideas, then do that. If you're better at
raising funds to pay for the programmers (who inturn create revenue
[however that is done] to pay for the fund raiser) then do that. I've
always found the big problems come when you get a programmer (say)
moving into advertising (or worse, the other way around!)

> > Perhaps you, Neil and Jason should get together over this.
> 
> One thing that we could do is use some of the funds raised independently
> to contribute so if a company commits money they don't take all the
> risk. Shared risk gives them a lot more confidence. Offering matched
> funding with the Gov is also a better way of getting money out of them.

It may be an idea then to see how much Jason passes over and use that
for the shared risk amount. Failing that, the "begging bowl" to Linux
based companies would be a better idea.

TTFN

Paul

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