[Members] Re: disconnect from board to active developers

[Alex Deucher]

On 10/23/06, Alan Cox <alan at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
> Ar Llu, 2006-10-23 am 17:36 +0200, ysgrifennodd Christoph Hellwig:
> > SoC like thing, or a gnome-like bounty offered from people or companies
> > wanting to see a certain thing fixed.
>
> The gnome bounties have had their problems too. Pressure on maintainers
> to accept a short term solution meeting the bounty as opposed to a long
> term solution that was already methodically in the making.

and

> Having official sponsoring from the project governing body creates
> a wide range of problems:
>
>  - it creates a two class society
>  - it makes people wait for some official to do the dirty work
>  - last but not least it gives people beeing payid their code is going
>   to go in no matter of the normal quality / community interaction
>   requirements

Generally all forms of paid development have their problems.  There is
always room for abuse.  When it comes down to it, what's really the
difference if Xorg contracts the development of feature X vs
Intel/HP/IBM/whoever contracting the development of feature X and then
donating it to Xorg.  The resulting code would still have to go
through approval by the maintainers/primary developers before applying
anyway.  Theoretically there may even be more transparency if Xorg
contracted the work because it could stipulate the level of
transparency.  The "correct" solution is often more easily developed
in the kernel because there are LOTS of paid and unpaid developers
working on the kernel.   X is unfortunately full of "short term
solutions" because we have limited developers with limited time so
horrible hacks often become the standard.  Why is paid development ok
in kernel land but problematic in X land?

Alex

>
> Alan
>
>