Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 12:41:49 +0000 From: nik@iii.co.uk To: John Kelly <jak@cetlink.net> Cc: Steve Logue <slogue@acm.org>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.ORG>, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Donations. Message-ID: <19980304124149.57634@iii.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <34fd483f.682772@mail.cetlink.net>; from John Kelly on Wed, Mar 04, 1998 at 12:34:05PM %2B0000 References: <12740.888967601@time.cdrom.com> <34fec28f.98429829@mail.cetlink.net> <34FCF201.B9B5DB16@acm.org> <34fd483f.682772@mail.cetlink.net>
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On Wed, Mar 04, 1998 at 12:34:05PM +0000, John Kelly wrote: > >> I'll donate $250 or more, but only for a vote on what work gets > >> funded. > > > >Simple - straight, and perfectly worded. May we now debate the dollar > >amount? > > Some have reacted with horror to this idea but it seems pragmatic to > me. > > How about one vote for every $250 donated? A donor of $750 would have > three votes. Design a ballot with suggested projects, and vote on > your favorite 10 in order of preference. The top vote getters become > funded. > > Obviously, the more you donate the more you can influence the vote, > but that's as it should be. It's not a political democracy. Will not work. Developers (and other contributors) work on a particular facet of FreeBSD for (as far as I can tell) one of two reasons. 1. They want to. 2. They are employed specifically to do that. If a developer wants to work on (for example) 'syscons' and all the voters would rather they spent more time on 'networking', the developer can cheerfully ignore all the votes, and do what they want anyway. The *only* use for a system like this would be where someone maintained a list of projects that need to be undertaken, and a ranking of those projects based on the votes. A developer with some spare time, and no particular preference as to which part of the system they want to work on next could then consult this list to find out what might be most useful to the project as a whole. Letting the voters decide what gets funded is also a stunningly bad idea. Influence over FreeBSD should be on the basis of technical merit, not amount of cash you have to spend. David G is the principal architect not because he paid Jordan & co. wads of cash (at least, I assume he didn't :-) ) but because he understands the technical work involved, and is trusted by the rest of -core to do the right thing. N -- Work: nik@iii.co.uk | FreeBSD + Perl + Apache Rest: nik@nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk | Remind me again why we need Play: nik@freebsd.org | Microsoft? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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