> The other thing is that, based on Theo's 18 April post, funds from > donations (or going to the openbsd foundation) don't go into the same > bucket as funds from CD sales.
That is correct. There are a few different buckets, and they are spent in different ways for a variety of very good reasons. > If I'm interested in putting my funds > into the CD bucket, donations and contributions to the foundation > don't get me there. That is correct, we do not mix the buckets. > Question, Theo: > > If I was to say the following, would it work without causing an > unacceptable amount of work? > > "My company wants to pay you to develop or fix <feature> (where <feature> > is already on the short list of what is planned for the next release). > It is worth <value> to us. If you're interested, send us an invoice > (from either you personally or your corporation or other business > entity) in some readily machine readable format (text file, > spread sheet, pdf, it doesn't matter) that lists the amount > and the feature. We'll send you the check immediately, and consider > the deliverable complete when the *initial* version is committed." There are developers in the project who are probably interested in work-for-hire. I, personally, cannot do that. I will not be a party to business. I am involved in the core project too much, and I make decisions related to donation funds. Therefore, I will not invoice. I also don't know of a company who wants to represent us and handle such transactions. However, did you know that some "initial versions" of some rather big plans have already been commited to the tree in the last few days (or the last few months, or the last few years) which would meet your terms. But I don't know where companies would pay "for completion", and later have it benefit the project as a whole. Personally, I cannot be party to such a business transaction. Perhaps someone else can offer their services, but it won't be me. > That deliverable is intented to be unobtrusive. It doesn't say > that it *must* be in the next release. It also doesn't imply > any sort of user acceptance test or support requirement. It allows > for the possibility for you to pass the funds along and have > another developer implement it. It is similar to other open > source projects where a company might put up a bounty to have a > certain feature implemented (other than in those cases, it is open to > whomever grabs it first). You can minimize the terms all you want, but you are still asking developers in our group to make promises and then to organize into a business model. You are asking us to do more. I think I do more than enough and don't need to make promises to outsiders just to keep this project alive. I bet all the developers feel the same way. Is writing and giving code away not enough? Do we have to sell our souls as well? I will not setup conduits to save the project. Perhaps we must survive based on value. If we don't I suspect we won't be the only ones losing. > So, does that take too much time away from development, or is for > some other reason (tax, etc) unworkable? Certainly, it would take time away from development. Everything takes time away from development -- even replying to this mail. > A possible valid response is, "we don't care that it's going into > the donation fund bucket rather than the CD fund bucket". A simple > "yes" or "no" also suffices; a long explanation either way is not > required. All the buckets can use money. The donation bucket tends to fund the hackathons -- those are primarily funded by the various donations schemes. The non-donation bucket tends to fund things which *cannot* be done out of donations, ie. keeping me in a "job", real in-Canada operating expenses (electricity), my travel to hackathons (not out of donations), etc. With all these costs considered, that bucket also has to ensure that the whole operation of making and selling CD's and tshirts does not go into the red. If either bucket runs dry you'll be running another operating system about a year later. Currently, the non-donation bucket is suffering a whole lot more.
