Programmer’s Wish List, Donation, Sponsorship a Compensation Scheme?
The open source community brought about great talents and good software. How does an open source project especially a small sized one gets on going without any funding? I was looking into various projects in sourceforge.net and the list numerous.
I have seen that the trend for an open source programmer to get something out of the free development of software or systems is to put some wish list. Various programmers have different needs like some a cup of coffee, white wine, vodka, gin, chardonnay, or simply a beer. Others have some list of books, electronics or anything at amazon.com. Or a gift certificate could be bought also.
Another way programmers are getting something out of an open source project they have is through donations. Donations via PayPal can be seen almost in every great open source sites.
Open source projects sometimes get sponsorship from big companies. Most of the money goes for the infrastructure but I think a small part of it might go to the programmers.
The different ways to get funded for a project or get paid for something you’ve done for free should not be misconstrued as a compensation but more of a gift. It might be difficult to say how effective each kind and it depends really about the importance of the project and the size of the developers involved. I think open source programmers have done a lot in sharing the IT arena and they deserve some wine toast for their efforts.
Posted on
Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 12:46 pm under 