People do get motivated by money. Take a look at Trisquel asking people for
money with its membership plans that pretty much say Ruben needs money to
keep this project going. If Ruben were to make the same if not more money
from monthly donations for Trisquel than his real job, then he would work on
this full time. If there were no members handing him money, then this project
wouldn't be at the state it is now and be another project that had a lot of
promise, but no sustainability.
There are two ways that Ruben can maintain this project and get money for it.
He can go the traditional route by setting up a small corporation or asking
for donations. There is so much overhead with taxes and employees to get a
corporation running and I doubt that is what he wants at the moment. Even if
he did get a corporation, he would have to make money by offering maintence
plans or forging deals with OEMs. There is also the Canonical route by trying
to get the OS onto devices like TVs.
Let's talk about the concept of donating. Isn't it just a socially correct
and legal way of panhandling? I mean if I give money to a homeless man, I do
it with the intention of using my own hard earned money to help that person
with their cause. That cause can be food, liquor, or whatever it is that the
homeless man wants. Donating is pretty much the same thing but without the
stigma of asking for it on the street. There are also the tax writeoffs.
Don't fool yourself with people doing things "out of the kindness of their
heart" mentality. Mozilla still gets 300 million from Google and push the
whole "open web, we are out for you" saying even though their CEOs get paid a
lot and they can have an office in San Francisco. If Ruben can get as much
money as possible from people handing him money, he will.
