GUADEC: New funding models for open source software

Big commercial distributors (like Red Hat) already fund a lot of upstream development by hiring people to work on them. Although this is annoying if you're an entrepreneur, it is much more efficient (more man-hour of software work per $) than giving money to countless small organisations (like Yorba) as you don't duplicate all of the overhead (HR, payroll, etc). And it has been highly successful for the projects that have benefited, like GNOME, KVM or the new fashionable cloud stuff.