Re: Funding GPL projects or funding the GPL?

[Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>]

On Sat, Jul 27, 2002 at 01:06:56PM -0300, Rik van Riel wrote:
> Some other areas won't ever get the funding through donations,
> simply because people will freeload whenever they can and try
> funding development as much as they can.  We've seen that with
> BitKeeper and you had to "tighten up" the license a bit in order
> to make sure development stayed funded.

Yeah, and I wasn't thrilled about it, I can tell you that.  I had the 
same starry eyed idealistic idea that things would just work out and
they don't.  So we're essentially in a proprietary model with a funky
dual free/pay licensing model.  That's OK for us because the money 
people value their privacy.

Actually, that's an interesting topic.  Other applications could use
the BK model of "free if you're out in the open" and pay otherwise.
It's pretty effective.  However, it doesn't work very well when the
community beats you to hell for not being GPLed.  I had a thick enough
skin to deal with it, I doubt others would, they'd give up.  It also
doesn't work when people refuse to obey the license because they 
don't agree with it (we had plenty of that).

That leads to the real question: what is an acceptable model for the
community and the vendor for applications which don't work under the
standard GPL model?

> In short, I believe the voluntary donations aren't needed in
> most areas people would donate to and won't make enough of an
> impact in the areas where they are needed.

Agreed, but his thought was to make it non-voluntary.  I have my doubts
about that working too, but there ought to be something which would work.
-- 
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Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm