Fundraising Feedback

[Frank Warmerdam]

Gary Lang wrote:
> I think the work-for-hire approach has some merit but generates a
> particular kind of sponsorship profile. 
> 
> But money's money. I'll think on this a bit.

Gary,

Note, I am not suggesting that the sponsorship funds would come
with a list of deliverables.  But rather that sponsors often expect
sponsorship money to help support bug fixing, testing and maintenance
that can sometimes get short shrift in open source projects.

While I don't think we should promise specific deliverables to sponsors
in return for their sponsorship money, I think projects that hope to get
recurring sponsorship ought to be very responsive to fixing issues raised
by sponsors in the bugsystem.  In the case of GDAL, if I can raise
sufficient sponsorship, I would hope to fund a part-time or full-time
maintainer position (not me).

I think the same model works well for mapserver where it is being used
by lots of folks to make money, and bug fixing and routine maintenance
sometimes lapses.  I'm not so sure this approach will work well for
something like MapGuide OS where people will just assume that ADSK will
take care of all that routine work.   In that case, folks might sponsor
with the intention that new developments would be funded that ADSK
might not have considered strategic enough to pursue.

I don't know the GeoTools, GRASS, Mapbender and MapBuilder communities
well enough to know if there will be well heeled sponsors willing to
sponsor in return for maintenance.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org