Re: $$$$ [was: Re: To the Armchair Directors]

In message <40560220.4010709_at_bis.midco.net>, Peter Schultz writes:

>I think it would be cool if the project as a whole were pushier about 
>getting people to pony up some dough.  Has there ever been a push for 
>cash?

In the past we (and I in particular) have been rather alergic to the 
very concept, but I must admit that I have not only changed my mind,
but also plan to try my hand at it in the near future.

The short version of this is that due to a contract change, I have
the entire second half of 2004 uncommitted right now, so I decided
to take a shot at rasing money to be able to do FreeBSD full time.

Basically I need to raise USD5K every month to be able to afford a
full time FreeBSD habit and I have decided to only do this if I can
raise money for at least three months.

I'm writing on a document which I intend to send to both the usual
and some unusual suspects, (including the user-population in general).
My hope is that I can find 10 companies who are willing to spend
$500 a month.

If it wasn't for banks being greedy bastards, 5000 users spending
one dollar a month would be all we needed, but more realistically
I think the minimum transaction will have to be at least $100.

Since I am self-employed, and not in USA, donations will be made
directly to my company which will issue receipt/invoice.  That does
not preclude the FreeBSD Foundation playing a role, but that is for
their board to decide.  My companys books will be open for inspection
by the donors and should they desire it: the core team.

If I manage to raise the funds for this, I plan to work on exactly
the same code as I would otherwise[*], but working on it full time
will make it arrive a lot sooner than it otherwise would and I will
likely also have time to attend to a lot of the smaller things that
get dropped due to time pressure right now.

I don't know if FreeBSD is ready for full time community supported
hackers but I intend to find out...

Any help, leads and donations are of course most welcome!

Poul-Henning

[*] Mainly getting Giant out of the device, file and disk I/O path.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk_at_FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.