Financing Volunteer Projects

This entry is more of a bookmark for now.

I found this article fascinating and am so glad that it was linked to off of Mark Shuttleworth's page on Ubuntu.org.

http://www.advogato.org/article/844.html

It discusses why introducing money into a volunteer workflow can seriously hamper the whole community. It also discusses that even if two contributers are sitting right next to each other they should keep their discussions in the public forum or mailing list.

There is something about the free and open source software movement that make money completely unnecessary. It just messes things up. Transparency is key. If you talk on the phone. Record and transcribe it and make it available for everyone. If you don't want to do that then don't talk on the phone.

There shouldn't be discussions that say, "Well, me and Tony decided at lunch the other day". Those actions will demean the community effort.

On another note. I originally found that page because I wanted to see how much support for Ubuntu Linux costs. $250 for 9-5 support for a desktop for a year. I would much rather give my money to Canonical than Mac or Windows. Mac's customer service is horrible, it is like a lottery, you never know if you are going to get someone who has been using Mac for years or just started working there.

It would be nice to "test out" Canonical's support option. I may do that if I have some extra cash someday. But first I need to take another pilot lesson.

I just wish there would be a pro video editing suite on par with Final Cut Studio (FCS) for Ubuntu Linux. Or at the very least be able to install FCS on Ubuntu. Maybe someday. I know Apple has a hard time getting FCS to run reliably on their own hardware for now.

Until next time...