>From my point of view, I am not against payed development, even in open source project. But from my experience, it is not obvious about the availability in the long term for such development. I saw so many examples of open-source project that turn in commercial project and therefore splitting the users in two categories : the free one and the not free. Often, this implies the end of the project. However, it depends how you manage to contribute with the paid development to the XFree project. I mean, would such development be made available to the community after a while (say 3 months or more for example) ? A second point is who can pay such services ? Business company, yes of course. Government company ? I don't know how it works in other countries than mine, but in mine the government can not easily paid for a development, and they need to do it with legal stuff (such as official publication to ask for different offers and so on). The problem with such development is that the company must accept that after a while this development will be available to the community. If not, then there will be two project : XFree and XNotFree... However, Open source means not absolutely "free". I mean, why not providing for money your services and your knowledge on this project to adapt or extend the ability of XFree for some features? Be sure to keep in touch with the XFree project in order to be able to follow its own evolution, which can be different than the one you could do on your side with your development. To finish, what I have observed around me is people proposing their services and knowledge for money on "open source" product. That's perfect because that's what often the companies need : the knowledge and the service. Frederic ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harold L Hunt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, July 05, 2002 8:23 PM Subject: Features for hire? > I have been kicking around an idea that I'd like some feedback on. > > The Cygwin/XFree86 project is at the point where it is nearly a replacement > for the commercial X Servers for Microsoft Windows. There remain only a few > features that need to be implemented in order for most businesses to find > Cygwin/XFree86 a viable alternative to the commercial X Servers out there: > > 1) Mutliple windows support. > > 2) Real PseudoColor support for TrueColor visuals. > > 3) Automatic ability to use Windows fonts in X. > > 4) A compact (Cygwin-free) X Server for displaying remote clients only. > > 5) A complete native GDI server. > > > Features like these can take a lot of time to implement properly. Though > features like these are nice, I think that business and goverment users would > see the most benefit from such features. With that in mind, I've been > thinking about setting up a small limited liability company and posting > proposals for developing certain features along a specified timeline for a > certain fee. > > For example, suppose that the lack of dream-feature Y is preventing a business > from using Cygwin/XFree86 instead of the commercial X Server ``SuperDuper-X'' > and that SuperDuper-X costs $200 per desktop. It seems logical to me that > said business would find it beneficial to pay, say, $500-$2000 for the > implementation of feature Y by a certain deadline (rather than when it just > happens to be developed). The source code would be released, of course, but > said business would get feature Y now, when they need it, and they would be > able to stop paying $200 per desktop for SuperDuper-X. > > Part of my motivation for proposing this is that I know we have tons of > business and government users out there to whom $500-$2000 is nothing. To me, > on the other hand, $500-$2000 is 5-20% of my current debt for various things > (car repairs, engagement rings, computer parts, student loans, etc.). I have > just been thinking that if there are businesses out there that would be > willing to pay $500-$2000 for a feature, then I should certainly be setup to > accept that money. However, if no businesses are seriously interested in this > then it would be a waste of my time to file the necessary documents to > establish a proper business for handling contract feature development
> > Note: I would not stop working on Cygwin/XFree86 for free in my spare time. > > Here is the feedback that I would like: > > 1) Would your company be interested or not interested in this? I want both > positive and negative responses so that I can gauge a percentage of business > and goverment users out there that are interested. > > 2) Is your business averse to open source feature development contracts? Or, > do you think that presenting the contract on the basis of, ``spend $500-$2000 > and save $200 per desktop'', would make it pretty easy to get approval? > > > I am really anxious to read your responses. > > > Thanks, > > Harold Hunt > > > P.S. I do things properly. I would put one link on the Cygwin/XFree86 site > to any site that offers to develop features for a fee. I would not host any > company related material on the Cygwin/XFree86 site. However, I would feel > justified to point business users in the direction of a proposal for the > development of a certain feature if they ask about when that feature will be > implemented. > ____________________________________________________________________ - http://www.WebMailSPro.com - >> VOTRE service d'email sans pub avec VOTRE nom de domaine
