[squeak-dev] Re: Funding

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Mon Apr 7 18:31:53 UTC 2008


A key problem with funding is the sheer amount one would need to  
achieve very much; if we postulate a dozen people (say 10 that do  
development work, a manager/leader and an admin) you would have to  
budget around $1.2M a year; increasing steadily as the USD sinks into  
the mire.

Volunteer work can achieve amazing things in some cases but it rarely  
has much success in handling the 'boring bits'. Look how few people  
have offered at any time to work on the unglamorous building of  
releases, harvesting of bug reports and potential fixes, writing of  
comments, etc etc etc. Come to that, look how few people do any of  
that even when paid to....

So far as I can see the only way that major work has been done in/for  
Squeak is when someone is funding a sizeable project and it includes a  
subsystem that can be spun out for general use. Interval, Apple,  
Disney, exobox, HP, IBM, and of course the slightly different sort of  
funding from some academic cases. Oh and a few of us (Anthony, Bryce,  
Craig, me, maybe others?) that have de-facto funded projects simply by  
not earning any money for an extended period whilst we do something  
for Squeak. Three years of my near-full-time attention adds up to a  
pretty big donation.

I think - as with so many things - Alan was right about funding. He  
successfully managed to get three major corporations to provide  
loosely tied funding and now has a sizeable chunk from the NSF.  We do  
need to remember though that his aim is to develop a sensible  
education system, not a 'better Squeak'.

Bottom line - unless you can find major funding the only resources  
available are those freely offered by *you*.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
When flying inverted, remember that down is up and up is expensive





More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list