At 11:42 AM 5/11/2008, Esther Filderman wrote:
There have been mechanisms in the past to directly fund OpenAFS; the
AFS & Kerberos Best Practices Workshop raises money for OpenAFS, and
there is a fund through Usenix, to take advantage of it being a 501c3.
As it's own 501c3 corporation OpenAFS would be able to accept
donations without a third party, something that would probably make it
easier -- and more comfortable -- for many sites to do. Additionally,
there are resources that neither company can always directly provide,
especially things like hardware.
I have personally donated to OpenAFS, but quite simply, as I am not
independently wealthy, my donation isn't worth more than a few hours of
consulting. My point was that if any IT shops are like ours, we can't just
"donate" money. Especially as a state funded institution, we can only
"buy" products or services that fulfill our needs. When it comes to
OpenAFS consulting, we actually need to create a justification. OpenAFS,
as open source software, is competing against commercial-off-the-shelf
(COTS) software, the traditional "cost" in IT computing. Maintenance
contracts are typically purchased with the COTS software which is implied
justification. Consulting costs are much easier to push through purchasing
channels in most companies than donations.
Rodney
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