Author: Wayde Beasley
Date: 07:43:45 01/11/01
Go up one level in this thread
On January 11, 2001 at 01:14:14, Tim Mann wrote: >>Why can't there be some funding mechanism to support open source projects like >>Winboard? I imagine a non-profit organization that receives funds into a trust >>then distributes to programmers to work one aspect of Winboard in accordance >>with members collective wishes. >> >>Users submit wish lists --> then voting takes place --> then angels ascend to >>heaven . . . > >Heh, I wonder who would run this organization, who it would "receive" funds >from, and who it would pay them to. I suppose the last part isn't too hard. >You could probably find consultants to work on just about anything if you had >money to pay them. Hopefully you could even find ones who would have enough >talent and care enough to do a good job. Well, www.collab.net seems to attempt something like this. Sponsors can commit contractually to paying for the development of a specified project goal. Then once accomplished, it gets released into open source community and Sponsor pays the developer. It seems to work there, but not sure how active/successful their business model is. Taking it a step further -- Winboard could be a project on a collab.net-type site, along with other open source chess projects. Members could vote on feature additions and prioritize them. That feature addition list gets publicised. Registered programmers (qualified) then submit proposals for the feature-add. As for receipt of the funds -- if it was a receipt of funds from the public, rather than a single sponsor, then a third party trust fund manager would have to be employed. Not really a big deal legally. In any event, it won't ever happen because of the intensely secretive and non-sharing, non-open source mentality of the entire computer chess population. It would be something that USCF could sponsor -- but they're bubbleheads so forget it. Answer me this: assume that a Foundation was in place to foster development of open source chess projects by contributing funds to programmers, and assume that the horses were led to this drinking well -- would the horses drink?
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