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I am curious about the mechanics of how the projects will spend this money. I have had quite a bit of professional experience working as a developer within an o

I am curious about the mechanics of how the projects will spend this money. I have had quite a bit of professional experience working as a developer within an open source project and I honestly don't know what we would have done had someone showed up with a one time payment of this size. The dollar amounts are too low to hire a full-time dev. They presumably have insufficient volunteers or they wouldn't need this money. So I am guessing that they will be offering existing volunteers some money to devote more time to the project. Another alternative would be hiring in some contractor who has no prior relationship with the project but having someone who doesn't know the project come in and implement something before vanishing and leaving everyone else to maintain their stuff is unappealing.

mperham 10y ago
Yep, that's a huge problem with "sustainable" OSS: it's wonderful to get a one-time $50k grant but if you expect to spend the next 10 years maintaining a reasonably complex/sized project, that $5k/yr is still minimum wage.
- mholt 10y ago
  I don't think there's any expectation that $50k will fund 10 years of development.
  - fijal 10y ago
    No, but "I donated $10 3 years ago and you guys are SLOW at responding to my queries!" is an incredibly common attitude. Open Source has shown that it's a far superior development methodology, but there is definitely some negativity associated with "expect stuff for free"
    - slgeorge 10y ago
      For a lot of OSS projects users who have donated feeling entitled would be a good problem to have. There are plenty of users who feel entitled and they don't donate time or money!
    - kirkdouglas 10y ago
      At present most of necessary software (OS, browser, office suites, social apps etc.) are free in one form or another, so users get in the habit not to pay for it and expecting additional features they want for free.
- Manishearth 10y ago
  It is a grant, not a salary. Generally grants are expected to be used for a year or two and you then look for another grant. At least, that's how it works in academia. Not many grants yet in open source so this is harder to make work :/
cdibona 10y ago
While I don't doubt that MoFo can handle this, it can be extremely difficult to productively give money to open source projects. I've been doing this since the late 90s and I can tell you that the desire to give money almost always has to have a goal attached (More code? More coders? Infrastructure Support?) etc, or you're just going to mess everything up.
nandaja 10y ago
I am a member of one of the projects that got awarded. We desperately are in need of better infrastructure for our development and testing purposes. Also we plan on collaborating face-to-face the coming year and the award definitely takes care of the expense. One of our team members is going to work full time on the project and we will be able to support her for at least a couple of months. We are all so excited! :) Btw, I am a part of the project PeARS.
- executesorder66 10y ago
  I am very interested in your project. But I couldn't find a binary or source that I could compile, on your website or your github page. Can you point me in the right direction?
  - nandaja 10y ago
    Our github account is here: https://github.com/PeARSearch/ https://github.com/PeARSearch/ We are not yet release ready. We plan on making our first release later this year. Please feel free to hangout at our IRC channel: #pears on Freenode. We are at a very early stage of development and we have got a lot of work to do. Any kind of contribution would be highly appreciated.
    - executesorder66 10y ago
      Awesome thanks. I'll go check on the channel for regular updates. I'm looking forward to this and I'll help where I can.
    - kriro 10y ago
      Thanks, very exciting project. I already made another post in this comments section before reading this (I was that excited :P). I see there's plans for a FF-plugin which is great news. My mind is a little blown as I have never really thought about P2P-search as a possibility. Less centralized power over search is a great and important cause (imo).
      - deleted 10y ago
majewsky 10y ago
> The dollar amounts are too low to hire a full-time dev. It depends. In Germany, I could easily live off a net salary of 800 € or something (where 1 € = 1 $ approximately), so the gross salary would be below 1500 €. Therefore a 20000 € award could keep me covered for at least a year. Other countries are cheaper, still. Executive summary: Don't spend the money on Bay Area devs. ;)
- S4M 10y ago
  While that is true, that salary is way inferior to market salaries of programmers in Germany (I don't live there but I assume junior programmers are pay 30k/year at least), so the project won't be able to attract good candidates - but it's good enough to pay intern or part time programmers so it's still something.
  - IshKebab 10y ago
    Yeah but I'm willing to bet people are willing work on their own project for a lot less money than their employer's project.
    - majewsky 10y ago
      Yes, this was what I'm getting at. I was thinking: "How much would I need if I wanted to work on my own projects?"
coldpie 10y ago
In the Wine project, we use donations to fund our yearly get-together and sponsor travel costs for volunteers.

mperham 10y ago

Yep, that's a huge problem with "sustainable" OSS: it's wonderful to get a one-time $50k grant but if you expect to spend the next 10 years maintaining a reasonably complex/sized project, that $5k/yr is still minimum wage.

mholt 10y ago
I don't think there's any expectation that $50k will fund 10 years of development.
- fijal 10y ago
  No, but "I donated $10 3 years ago and you guys are SLOW at responding to my queries!" is an incredibly common attitude. Open Source has shown that it's a far superior development methodology, but there is definitely some negativity associated with "expect stuff for free"
  - slgeorge 10y ago
    For a lot of OSS projects users who have donated feeling entitled would be a good problem to have. There are plenty of users who feel entitled and they don't donate time or money!
  - kirkdouglas 10y ago
    At present most of necessary software (OS, browser, office suites, social apps etc.) are free in one form or another, so users get in the habit not to pay for it and expecting additional features they want for free.
Manishearth 10y ago
It is a grant, not a salary. Generally grants are expected to be used for a year or two and you then look for another grant. At least, that's how it works in academia. Not many grants yet in open source so this is harder to make work :/

cdibona 10y ago

While I don't doubt that MoFo can handle this, it can be extremely difficult to productively give money to open source projects. I've been doing this since the late 90s and I can tell you that the desire to give money almost always has to have a goal attached (More code? More coders? Infrastructure Support?) etc, or you're just going to mess everything up.

nandaja 10y ago

I am a member of one of the projects that got awarded. We desperately are in need of better infrastructure for our development and testing purposes. Also we plan on collaborating face-to-face the coming year and the award definitely takes care of the expense. One of our team members is going to work full time on the project and we will be able to support her for at least a couple of months. We are all so excited! :) Btw, I am a part of the project PeARS.

executesorder66 10y ago
I am very interested in your project. But I couldn't find a binary or source that I could compile, on your website or your github page. Can you point me in the right direction?
- nandaja 10y ago
  Our github account is here: https://github.com/PeARSearch/ https://github.com/PeARSearch/ We are not yet release ready. We plan on making our first release later this year. Please feel free to hangout at our IRC channel: #pears on Freenode. We are at a very early stage of development and we have got a lot of work to do. Any kind of contribution would be highly appreciated.
  - executesorder66 10y ago
    Awesome thanks. I'll go check on the channel for regular updates. I'm looking forward to this and I'll help where I can.
  - kriro 10y ago
    Thanks, very exciting project. I already made another post in this comments section before reading this (I was that excited :P). I see there's plans for a FF-plugin which is great news. My mind is a little blown as I have never really thought about P2P-search as a possibility. Less centralized power over search is a great and important cause (imo).
    - deleted 10y ago

majewsky 10y ago

> The dollar amounts are too low to hire a full-time dev. It depends. In Germany, I could easily live off a net salary of 800 € or something (where 1 € = 1 $ approximately), so the gross salary would be below 1500 €. Therefore a 20000 € award could keep me covered for at least a year. Other countries are cheaper, still. Executive summary: Don't spend the money on Bay Area devs. ;)

S4M 10y ago
While that is true, that salary is way inferior to market salaries of programmers in Germany (I don't live there but I assume junior programmers are pay 30k/year at least), so the project won't be able to attract good candidates - but it's good enough to pay intern or part time programmers so it's still something.
- IshKebab 10y ago
  Yeah but I'm willing to bet people are willing work on their own project for a lot less money than their employer's project.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    Yes, this was what I'm getting at. I was thinking: "How much would I need if I wanted to work on my own projects?"

coldpie 10y ago

In the Wine project, we use donations to fund our yearly get-together and sponsor travel costs for volunteers.