[okfn-discuss] Setting up 2 Funds (for F/OSS and Open Knowledge)

[Benj. Mako Hill]

<quote who="Tom Chance" date="Fri, Jul 14, 2006 at 08:05:36PM +0100">
> It sounds like a potentially great idea to me. It would be worth
> talking to the Association for Free Software, who started a similar
> scheme a while back allocating grants to UK developers. The money came
> from the UKFSN, a hosting company, and was on a fairly small scale.
> I'm sure they'd have lots of useful advice on this matter!

It's not at all clear to me that grants to developers are always or even
frequently the best idea for these kinds of projects.  In many
situations, introducing paid labor into otherwise volunteer projects has
the effect of crowding out the volunteers and ultimately hurting the
long-term sustainability of the project.

I've written a little bit about this here:

  http://mako.cc/writing/funding_volunteers/funding_volunteers.html

Regards,
Mako


-- 
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako at atdot.cc
http://mako.cc/

Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so
far as society is free to use the results. --RMS