[OSGeo-Discuss] are there any unpaid developers?

Arne Kepp arne at tiledmarble.org
Tue Apr 20 07:52:28 PDT 2010


Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Mark Lucas wrote:
>> I think that most of the developers that actively contribute to the 
>> OSSIM project are funded through government contracts.  Having said 
>> that, most all of them contribute well beyond the time they are paid 
>> for.  Often that is to move the baseline towards capabilities that 
>> are not covered by customer requirements.  I spend most all of my 
>> time securing contracts so we can expand the team.
>>
>> The core team has worked together over the last decade as the 
>> individual contributors have switched companies several times.
>>    
> This seems fairly typical of successful open source projects - an 
> initial period where work is funded by a research grant or an internal 
> requirement, evolving into a core team where employers fund time for 
> various business purposes, with support broadening over time (e.g., 
> writing books, consulting, etc.).
>
> I can't think of any successful (wide adoption, long-term 
> sustainability) open source projects that are pure labors of love.
>
> Miles Fidelman

OpenTTD  (a remake of a classic game)  has been going for something like 
10 years and is highly successful by almost any measure. You can debate 
how many other games like this are successful, but few of them have any 
potential whatsoever to make money.

On IRC someone (Yexo on OFTC) pointed out that it may work the other way 
around. It can be a labor of love, but if it is possible to make money 
off some piece of software, then somebody (maybe not the original 
author) will do just that. It could still have succeeded without, we'll 
never know.

-Arne

ps. http://www.baculasystems.com/ , they do most of the work on Bacula



More information about the Discuss mailing list