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Money or nothing? Trade-offs in FOSS compensation (Linux.com)
Linux.com tackles the
issues of paying some people to develop free software. "What happens
when a free and open source software (FOSS) project attempts to introduce
compensation for its developers? Because FOSS remains based largely on
volunteer work, many worry that payment might demotivate both those who
receive it and those who do not. However, community leaders who have
observed how payment interacts with the FOSS ethos suggest a more
complicated picture. Identifying four main types of payment -- bounties,
payment in kind, grants, and employment -- these experts suggest that what
happens depends on the type of payment, as well as on the individuals
involved."
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Money or nothing? Trade-offs in FOSS compensation (Linux.com) Posted Mar 6, 2007 15:24 UTC (Tue) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link] I find the bit about the Mozilla Foundation paying people to develop accessibility in Firefox and Thunderbird interesting. It is indeed true that FLOSS developers tend to do the bits that interest them well, but things that do not affect them directly are often neglected. It is similar to the way that FLOSS software is still struggling to become accessible to less technical people - a developer is usually not particularly motivated to fix something he can work around easily, but which might be more of a barrier to an "average person". That is also an area in which it is worth paying developers (as in fact distributions are doing more and more).
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