[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo barriers to entry

[Landon Blake]

Miles,

I think your questions about the day jobs of OSGeo contributors would
make a great online poll or survey. It would be interesting to get a
look at that data.

Landon
Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Miles Fidelman
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 3:20 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo barriers to entry

Tyler Mitchell wrote:
> Perhaps we can turn the thread to discussing what are the real or 
> perceived barriers people, in general, find to getting involved with 
> OSGeo.   I'm sure that any barriers women would have might also affect

> others, so it might be useful to broaden the discussion so more 
> participate.
>
> 1 What barriers are there to joining OSGeo and its projects?
Getting paid tends to be a big one.

Seriously.  Most of the successful open source projects I'm familiar
with involved salaries or other work-related support.

- University researchers working on grants (Apache)

- Students working on thesis material (Linux)

- IT staff developing software as part of their work, then open sourcing
the software as a way to reduce ongoing support costs (Sympa)

- Corporate developers open sourcing code to expand a user base (Erlang)

- Government contractors working working on an SBIR contract (one of our
current projects)

- etc.

Labors of love are fun, but ultimately most people have to pay the
bills. 

I guess that leads to a central question:  What are the day jobs of the
core developers associated with OSGeo projects, to what extent are those
developers paid to work on the projects, and what are the business
reasons of their employers for doing so?



-- 
Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs
Traverse Technologies 
145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor
Boston, MA  02111
mfidelman at traversetechnologies.com
857-362-8314
www.traversetechnologies.com

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