[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo barriers to entry

[Miles Fidelman]

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?



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Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs
Traverse Technologies 
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