> Also, I thought the currency of the Open Source movement wasn't money,
The currency of open source is not ONLY cash.
> but rather contributions. Your talk of paying $25,000 is total shite.
At the risk of launching into a lecture on fiscal theory, "money" is an
abstract promise backed by confidence. A dollar bill is a notarised
certificate of promise redeemable anywhere within the bounds of the issuing
authority. It is a guaranteed promise of contribution on behalf of an
abstract third party.
The crucial difference between this kind of promise and any other kind of
promise is that once the cash has been handed over, the promise cannot be
repudiated. In God we trust. Everybody else pays cash. In the open source
game, code is hard cash, but cash is also hard cash.
This in no way conflicts with the notion that contribution is the currency
of open source.
Richard Stallman is a gallant fool.
> I wouldn't being porting our mature Weblogic application to JBoss if I
> had to pay for anything.
Yes you would. You have already said that you would be contributing code --
open source hard cash.
The point that I have tried to make is that not everybody has the time or
inclination to contribute code, and that there is also the option of the
regular kind of cash.
Moreover, I think you mistake the fundamental nature of open source. It is
called "open source" rather than "free software" because it is open source,
not free software. The defining quality of open source software is that the
source code is made available for uncontrolled redistribution and
modification. Even the uncontrolled nature of redistribution is somewhat
qualified -- it is very bad manners to release modifications of open source
code bases by any means other than the project source tree.
In support of these statements, I refer you to Eric S. Raymond's seminal
works, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", "Homesteading the Noosphere" and "The
Magic Cauldron" at http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/
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