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

Sun Jul 16 17:24:12 UTC 2006

Ahoy,

On Sunday 16 July 2006 17:34, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
> <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.

The AFFS only ever doled out one grant (so far as I can see) that covered some 
hardware and travel costs, rather than payment for work done. That was the 
focus of their scheme, rather than bounties or contract work. Hence 'grants' 
rather than 'payments' :)

Regards,
Tom

-- 
The task of critique is not to denounce the ideals, but to show their 
transformation into ideologies, and to challenge the ideology in the 
name of the betrayed ideal (Fromm – Beyond The Chains Of Illusion)