<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Apr 20, 2010, at 10:52 AM, Arne Kepp wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Miles Fidelman wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">Mark Lucas wrote:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">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.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">The core team has worked together over the last decade as the individual contributors have switched companies several times.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"> <br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">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.).<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">I can't think of any successful (wide adoption, long-term sustainability) open source projects that are pure labors of love.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Miles Fidelman<br></blockquote><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>-Arne</div></blockquote><br></div><div>FlightGear is an example of a successful mostly volunteer based long-term Open Source Project</div><div><a href="http://www.flightgear.org/introduction.html">http://www.flightgear.org/introduction.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>Norman</div></body></html>