On Wednesday 12 June 2002 16:37, Billy Biggs wrote: > I see only two options: Go all the way, ask all users to pay, lose > personal ownership of the project and turn it into a product, or ask > nothing and expect nothing. Anything in between puts everyone in a bad > position: users might feel obligated to contribute even though they have > no guarentee of getting anything for it, or the author might feel > obligated to continue working even though the financial reward is > insufficient and charity rather than market driven.
There's always the classic FSF model: an agreement with a particular user that needs a feature to add that feature for a specific price. The feature then becomes part of the standard open source distro (so all the community benefits). I understand Richard Stallman made a living for many years this way. Cheers! |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| |Frederick F. Gleason, Jr.|WAVA Radio - 105 FM |Voice: 1-(703)-807-2266 | | Director of Engineering |1901 N. Moore Street| FAX: 1-(703)-807-2245 | | |Arlington, VA 22209 | Web: HTTP://www.wava.com| |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| | All progress is based upon a universal innate desire of every organism | | to live beyond its income. | | -- Samuel Butler | | "Notebooks" | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
