On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Anne Kathrine Petteroe <[email protected]> wrote: > ...I have a question for Erik. > > In a comment on David's post you say: > "I just don't see the path, other than perhaps Siemens, SAP, or some other > sponsor paying people to write the code. Which, of course, would fit with > other ASF projects." > > How does this sponsorship work? > Does ASF have projects which are commercial open source?...
It's not uncommon for ASF developers to work on projects in their work time, and I think in the last few years this has become much more common. The important thing is that the ASF is not involved with this in any way - if a company wants to hire a developer or contractor to work on ASF software, they are free to do so, but ASF projects involve individuals, not companies. >From the ASF's perspective, what is important is that project decisions are made by individuals and not companies. To graduate from the incubator, a project needs at least three committers who are independent from each other in a business sense, i.e. employed by independent companies or self-employed. To take a concrete example, if a company were to hire someone to work on ESME, and that someone is not currently active on the project, that person would have to prove their merit and follow the usual process to become a committer - there's no way for someone to "buy a seat" in an ASF project. -Bertrand
