Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 09:21:51 -0500 (CDT) From: Mark Tinguely <tinguely@plains.nodak.edu> To: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: T-shirts for donations ;)...Maybe????? Message-ID: <199606111421.JAA19975@plains.nodak.edu>
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In a "free" organization money matters become a dangerous (but increasingly necessary) force. We went through all of this muck when a group of individuals were interested in starting a support for hire buisness. Complaints were simular to what we see now, would the patches/new support be bundled back, and when. Hopefully, they were not boo-ed out the idea, consultants for buisnesses are needed. Remember, with the FreeBSD copyright, a person can resell FreeBSD as long as proper permission is given. We knew that when we gave the code/time to FreeBSD. I think there are places that an inovative person(s) can make a living from FreeBSD that would be mutually benifical to all parties and the rest of us should be incouraging them. I am sure there are many developers out in FreeBSD-land that need to use their personal money to buy equipment to write device drivers and some of us do not have a lot money to buy new equipment and therefore some devices are not supported. It would be nice to have a "grant" fund that can buy equipment to advance FreeBSD driver support. I think there are many overly worked FreeBSD people that deserve money for there time. But firstly, paying them will hurt the moral of the volunteer group, it seems to me there is a perception that "others are getting rich off my free labor into FreeBSD"; this is UNTRUE, I think the hardest worker are losing money on their FreeBSD work. Secondly, I do not think we can finacially sustain paying developers using *volunteer money* for the long term. Remember the UCB [history] (said in the "remember the alamo" yell). At the end, they spent many hours trying to raise money. I wish a FreeBSD.org self-support consultant service would work, but it is percieved as a bad thing that it probably will eventually be created by a seperate business. I better stop now before I start a bitch session on PBS-style of needing to give a gift to get a donation. --mark.
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