Re: [LAU] Payment In Kind Experiment

>From: Paul Davis <paul@email-addr-hidden>

>On Wed, 2007-12-12 at 07:24 -0500, drew Roberts wrote:
>
>>
>> *** This may just be the key idea. Now we get funding not just from the
>> limited number of people who use Free Software to make music, but from the
>> much wider number of people who are willing to buy music.
>
>Alas, fundamental error here. The set of people you're talking about is
>the set of people who are willing to buy a *particular set of music*.
>
>If there is anyone on the list who has ever sold enough CD's to pay even
>a cheap-cost-of-living-nation-resident programmer for one year, please
>do tell. Two such developers? I'll be amazed. Three? I'll probably
>conclude that you're lying :)
>
>Raising money to pay for s/w development so that programmers can work
>fulltime costs a LOT OF MONEY. Even if the programmers are holed up in
>Guatamala or Nepal. And if they are in the first world, which at this
>point (for all kinds of reasons) most FOSS developers are, it costs even
>more than that.
>
>Its really fantastic that the linux audio community has been as
>financially supportive of some of its developers (me! i hope others
>too), but please lets not kid ourselves. The fundraising that is being
>talked about pays for a feature or two. It doesn't pay for programmers
>to work full time on stuff, and for professional, complicated programs,
>that is, alas, precisely what is needed. Even the kernel gets this,
>albeit via a different mechanism.

well sure, paul... but is it not in the very nature of the FOSS "fabric" that support will be varied and needs to come from many (independantly insufficient) sources, if it is to have any hope of being (cumulatively) sufficient? so, if we can find some *particular* group of people who wish to buy our *particular* offering of music, it may be another functional bit of income.

but, yes, calling it "the key idea" is likely not correct - idon't think there is such a single entity.

-- 
.pltk.
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