On Sunday, 4 January 2015 at 08:31:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:
This is an idea I've been kicking around for a while, and given
the need for commercial support for D, would perhaps work well
here.
The notion is that individual developers could work on patches
to fix bugs or add features to ldc/druntime/phobos then sell
those closed patches to paying customers. After enough time
has passed, so that sufficient customers have adequately paid
for the work or after a set time limit beyond that, the patch
is open sourced and merged back upstream. It would have to be
ldc and not dmd, as the dmd backend is not open source and the
gdc backend license doesn't allow such closed patches.
A funny scenario based on this proposal: Company A wants feature
B, and signs a contract with a developer for a certain amount,
receiving the feature as soon as possible, releasing the paid-for
software to the public after a year. During that year, company C
comes to the same developer wanting the same feature. They say,
"It's already paid for, but you can pay company A half the
development cost, minus the proportion of time left before it's
open to everyone, and you can both have it!" Or something like
that.
