Where is FreeBSD going?

[Nick Rogness]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Ryan Sommers wrote:

> On Wed, 2004-01-07 at 20:29, Nick Rogness wrote:
> >     1) Allow for paid development for a specific bug/feature
> > 
> > 	 - Setup some program that allows users like myself to pay for a 
> > 	developers time to fix a specific bug.  The company I work for 
> > 	would easily pay serious dollars to fix our SMP problems with 4.X.
> > 	Unfortunetly, getting someone's attention that has a great 
> > 	understanding of the OS is hard to find without rude remarks and 
> > 	what-not.
> > 
> > 	You could even extend it as far as saying we will promote this PR
> > 	to the top of the list of tasks if you pay us XX dollars.  Or 
> > 	maybe, the more you pay the higher you go.
> > 
> > 	This would reassure the user base that things CAN get done if 
> > 	needed and also let the developer/bug fixer feel like they can 
> > 	make money and have some fun.  It will also bring in money for the 
> > 	project as part of that money could go back into the Project.
> > 
> > 	You could easily setup a "pool" mailling list (like -requests) 
> > 	which someone like myself would email a request with the problem 
> > 	description (or PR).  If a developer is interested in tackling the 
> > 	problem for money, we could privately negotiate a price.
> > 
> > 	The same can be done for driver development and others.  Make it a 
> > 	"Donation for a specific request".  I don't want to give money to
> > 	some Foundation where money can be thrown around in the wrong 
> > 	areas.  I want to pay the developer personally for their efforts.  
> > 	( I feel the same should be done with our taxes as well ;-) 
> > 
> 
> I really don't like the idea of making this a "policy," or even some
> official part of the project. I think this might discourage some from
> contributing in hopes to be paid for it. I think a better solution for
> companies looking for this would be to post to the jobs@ mailing list
> noting that it is a temp job.

	The point was not to take away from contributing developers only 
	to pay someone who is familiar with the problem.  I don't want to 
	have to hire someone that doesn't have a clue on the problem and
	takes 6 months to even become familiar with a specific PR.

	I don't see anything wrong with paying someone who is working on 
	my PR.  Even it is a small amount.  I'm not a company and can't 
	afford to hire a programmer to develop a driver for me 
	personally.  However, if someone is working on a driver already 
	and is time contstrained, I would pay some money to help relieve 
	some of the time stress involved.  I gave suggestions for keeping
	developers happy and efficient.  Money is the only REAL answer.

	Perhaps this could be done through a company that contracts just
	FreeBSD developers.  I know of no such company.  I guess I will 
	have to be satisfied with -jobs for now.

> 
> I don't think giving priority to paying entities is a path the project
> should tread down. If someone needs FreeBSD developer work they should
> look for someone to hire. Something like this might also jeopardize the
> project's "not for profit" status. I think the jobs@ mailing list would
> be a better start. (I'm going to be looking for a full time job in about
> 11 months and if I got one where I got to code/administer BSD I'd feel I
> was in Heaven.) :-)

	Agreed.	

-- 
Nick Rogness <nick at rogness.net>
-
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