On Saturday 11 July 2009, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote: > On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 12:05 PM, jtd<[email protected]> wrote: > > Are there stats about unpaid contributors becoming paid contributors > > after contribution v/s contributors who have been shifted from closed > > projects to FLOSS (and still being paid). > > Maybe someone who has been on the FOSS development scene much longer > can comment on the unpaid FOSS contributor to paid FOSS contributor > shift.
Must keep in mind to search for such stats. Would be very intersting. > > As for the shift from closed to open, I don't believe it can happen > unless the contributors actually *get* what the entire idea of FOSS > means. If they don't value the thrill of seeing your code run on > hundreds of thousands of computers or the feeling of enlightenment > every time someone improves upon your work, it just does not matter. True. But that is looking at things in a yellow light only. > > > Secondly what is the alternative available to the closed company and its > > apps? We know it's easy to produce code, but exceedingly hard to prevent > > bitrot. So original code contributions would IMO be more a requirement > > rather than an option. As each individual subsystem becomes a smaller > > part of the whole ecosystem, it will be a nightmare to keep things barely > > workable in a closed env. > > I guess bitrot does not matter for closed companies as long as it > generates revenue for them. Hit their revenues and they will look to > innovate. The same goes for some major FOSS projects as well, but the > payoff in their case is not revenues -- it is mindshare. Honestly, > look under the hood of firefox only if you're really really brave. The > same goes for OpenOffice.org. They are not improving all that much > under the hood because no one significant is challenging them in that > area. They're usable and feature-rich and that is good enough. Firefox > is now scrambling to get its act together with Google Chrome giving it > some serious competition with superior stability and speed. Koffice. Havent tried in in a while, but a client started using Koffice instead of OO and does not know the difference. Agreed. But Close the source and you have shut all chances. Opening it at least permits prevention. -- Rgds JTD -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
