3 ms·

In Europe (and I guess, the US too), $100K is not even enough to hire an engineer at an average rate for a year. I'm not sure what you'd propose to do with it

In Europe (and I guess, the US too), $100K is not even enough to hire an engineer at an average rate for a year. I'm not sure what you'd propose to do with it exactly?

Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
I'll just quote myself: > allowing contributors to focus a more significant portion of their time on GIMP I never said anything about hiring full-time engineers. Also, there are plenty of people willing to be paid a little less to work on something open-source, and something that they take great pride in. We have to be careful not to take advantage of such people, but some people are in a position where they can afford to earn a little less to do something they love.
- wiz21c 8y ago
  If I was not already busy on something else, I would have worked at 60/day, a day a week on that kind of stuff for the very reasons you describe ! (well, except I don't know anything about gimp's internals :-))
nothis 8y ago
I don't know where you work but there's plenty of places in Europe where you can hire a decent engineer for $100k a year.
- antt 8y ago
  What the company pays and what the developer receives are two very different numbers. In extreme cases the difference can be up to 30%.
- ethelward 8y ago
  Nah, there are plenty of places in Europe when a decent engineer earns $100K/year (or less). That's not what the enterprise is paying.
lucb1e 8y ago
But a developer working full-time on a single project for an entire year can make a huge difference (compared to only user contributions, or 1 person extra on a 20-person project). If there aren't a dozen other full-time developers, you're saving loads of time on meetings, product planning, and everything involved. So even if I would agree that it's not enough for a full year, it's definitely enough for most of a year, with similar results.

3 ms·

In Europe (and I guess, the US too), $100K is not even enough to hire an engineer at an average rate for a year. I'm not sure what you'd propose to do with it

by ethelward 8y ago

In Europe (and I guess, the US too), $100K is not even enough to hire an engineer at an average rate for a year. I'm not sure what you'd propose to do with it exactly?

Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
I'll just quote myself: > allowing contributors to focus a more significant portion of their time on GIMP I never said anything about hiring full-time engineers. Also, there are plenty of people willing to be paid a little less to work on something open-source, and something that they take great pride in. We have to be careful not to take advantage of such people, but some people are in a position where they can afford to earn a little less to do something they love.
- wiz21c 8y ago
  If I was not already busy on something else, I would have worked at 60/day, a day a week on that kind of stuff for the very reasons you describe ! (well, except I don't know anything about gimp's internals :-))
nothis 8y ago
I don't know where you work but there's plenty of places in Europe where you can hire a decent engineer for $100k a year.
- antt 8y ago
  What the company pays and what the developer receives are two very different numbers. In extreme cases the difference can be up to 30%.
- ethelward 8y ago
  Nah, there are plenty of places in Europe when a decent engineer earns $100K/year (or less). That's not what the enterprise is paying.
lucb1e 8y ago
But a developer working full-time on a single project for an entire year can make a huge difference (compared to only user contributions, or 1 person extra on a 20-person project). If there aren't a dozen other full-time developers, you're saving loads of time on meetings, product planning, and everything involved. So even if I would agree that it's not enough for a full year, it's definitely enough for most of a year, with similar results.