[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
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