[Squeakfoundation]Funding Squeak Development Through the Foundation?

[Mark A. Schwenk]

While the scent of money is still in the mailing list, I'd like to raise a 
related issue. Some have suggested that the foundation shouldn't get too 
hung up on money, but I, for one (actually WellThot Inc.), would be willing 
to contribute money to fund an increased level of UNIX VM development and 
support, developing J3 to its fruition across platforms (including my new 
iPAQ), etc. Is an increased level of volunteer coordination sufficient to 
accomplish such things or will money and dedicated people be necessary?

And if it takes money, how might we handle it? Should such transactions be 
done outside the foundation, where it would probably fall to the bigwigs to 
fund such development, or companies could contribute a portion of one of 
their developer's time, or perhaps the foundation could serve to pool 
donations from smallwigs to fund development to achieve common goals. It 
would be nice to be able to earmark at least a portion of donations to 
support specific activities.

I think that it might be good to collectively support a core team of 
developers outside the current Squeak Central team.

But how do you handle the civil unrest between the volunteer Squeakers and 
the paid Squeakers?

Although I wouldn't mind being a paid Squeaker (and I have been paid by 
clients for some of my Squeak work and have paid others to assist me), I 
also wouldn't mind paying others to develop and maintain some of the core 
functionality that would allow me to pursue my own projects at a more rapid 
pace with a more robust and higher performing system supporting me.

What do YOU think?

-Mark Schwenk
  WellThot Inc.