Re: [tlug] Re: Why Vista Sucks (was: linux: it's becoming ubiquitous)

[Edward Middleton <emiddleton@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Attila Kinali writes:
>  > Yes, i know i will sound like a OSS zealot, but if it doesn't
>  > get implemented in OSS, then the interest in this particular
>  > feature isn't big enough. If the interest would be big enough
>  > someone would actualy do it, either because he needs it or
>  > because someone pays him for it)
>
> That's a reasonable point of view for the developer, but it's just
> plain wrong if you've got a million people willing to pay $1 for a 1
> man-year project, but no way to collect from more than 10,000 of them.
>   

The problem is that you need to convince 1 million people sufficiently 
that their $1 dollar investment is actually going to give the return 
they are after.  This is obviously difficult but I am not convinced it 
is impossible.  On a smaller scale people like Poul-Henning Kamp[1] of 
FreeBSD fame did this, and a there is a ruby developer Gregory Brown[1] 
is trying to do something like this.  Perhaps the ultimate business 
model for open source development is something more like a stock 
exchange where developers can auction project/developer time.

Edward

1. http://people.freebsd.org/~phk/funding.html
2. 
http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2008/03/id_love_to_quit_my_job_sort_of.html