commercial: paying for work on features

[Jeromy Evans - Blue Sky Minds]

Each week I try to make some voluntary contribution to an open source
project through support or coding. As I have my own business though I
must resist the temptation to do more for Struts2 as when I do I
directly neglect some other priority. Often the consequence is that I
contribute code in areas that direct benefit me and issues of importance
to the community are missed.

Given that I'd like to do more but often can't justify it, I was
wondering whether it's appropriate for an individual or business to
attempt to raise funding for the direct improvement of struts2?  For
example, the Struts2 tags for Dojo 1.1 are one of the most frequently
requested improvements.  I have both the skills and the time required to
create them, but as I don't need Dojo support myself I cannot justify
the effort.  If I could raise some funding for the work though I
certainly would do it and I suspect there are some progressive
businesses out there that would appreciate the cost/benefit.

The crucial point here is that I'm not talking about donations to
Apache; rather I'm talking about individuals or businesses soliciting
funding to perform work on Struts2.  Personally I'd hate to see emails
in struts-users from Joe Everyman soliciting funding ("I'll fix that bug
it if you pay me $50 on paypal"), but on the other hand there seems to
be a missed opportunity to improve Struts2 here.

How does the PMC feel about this and what are the implications?

regards,
 Jeromy Evans

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[Antonio Petrelli-3]

2008/5/7 Jeromy Evans <jeromy.evans@...>:
> Often the consequence is that I contribute code in
> areas that direct benefit me and issues of importance to the community are
> missed.

This is your mistake: you are thinking that you are not "the
community". In fact, all the contributors (PMC members, committers and
patch makers) are the community, not the "freeloaders" that only ask
to fix a bug.
So, IMHO, don't feel guilty for this :-)

Ciao
Antonio

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[Al Sutton]

I would suggest that if anyone wanted to "hire" a developer to do some work
they should do it as an independent arrangement and then both parties can
negotiate costs, terms, and code donations as per a standard development
contract. I think involving the foundation in anything like this could open
up a legal minefield.

Al.

P.S. imho we should just spin-off (or kill off) the dojo plugin, if it needs
paid-for time just to keep it up to date then I would say that it's not
something we can support to a level that's acceptable to the users. I
recently had a shot at updating it, but found it was far easier just to use
YUI directly than to update the dojo plugin and then use the S2 dojo tags.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeromy Evans" <jeromy.evans@...>
To: "Struts Developers List" <dev@...>
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 5:39 AM
Subject: commercial: paying for work on features

> Each week I try to make some voluntary contribution to an open source
> project through support or coding. As I have my own business though I must
> resist the temptation to do more for Struts2 as when I do I directly
> neglect some other priority. Often the consequence is that I contribute
> code in areas that direct benefit me and issues of importance to the
> community are missed.
>
> Given that I'd like to do more but often can't justify it, I was wondering
> whether it's appropriate for an individual or business to attempt to raise
> funding for the direct improvement of struts2?  For example, the Struts2
> tags for Dojo 1.1 are one of the most frequently requested improvements.
> I have both the skills and the time required to create them, but as I
> don't need Dojo support myself I cannot justify the effort.  If I could
> raise some funding for the work though I certainly would do it and I
> suspect there are some progressive businesses out there that would
> appreciate the cost/benefit.
>
> The crucial point here is that I'm not talking about donations to Apache;
> rather I'm talking about individuals or businesses soliciting funding to
> perform work on Struts2.  Personally I'd hate to see emails in
> struts-users from Joe Everyman soliciting funding ("I'll fix that bug it
> if you pay me $50 on paypal"), but on the other hand there seems to be a
> missed opportunity to improve Struts2 here.
>
> How does the PMC feel about this and what are the implications?
>
> regards,
> Jeromy Evans
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@...
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@...
>
>

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[Martin Cooper-2]

"I think involving the foundation in anything like this could open up a
legal minefield."

Indeed. I would encourage anyone who really wants to go down that path to
engage with the prc@ and legal-discuss@ first, to gain a full understanding
of what would be acceptable for the foundation and why.

--
Martin Cooper


On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 12:43 AM, Al Sutton <al.sutton@...> wrote:

> I would suggest that if anyone wanted to "hire" a developer to do some
> work they should do it as an independent arrangement and then both parties
> can negotiate costs, terms, and code donations as per a standard development
> contract. I think involving the foundation in anything like this could open
> up a legal minefield.
>
> Al.
>
> P.S. imho we should just spin-off (or kill off) the dojo plugin, if it
> needs paid-for time just to keep it up to date then I would say that it's
> not something we can support to a level that's acceptable to the users. I
> recently had a shot at updating it, but found it was far easier just to use
> YUI directly than to update the dojo plugin and then use the S2 dojo tags.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeromy Evans" <
> jeromy.evans@...>
> To: "Struts Developers List" <dev@...>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 5:39 AM
> Subject: commercial: paying for work on features
>
>
>
>  Each week I try to make some voluntary contribution to an open source
> > project through support or coding. As I have my own business though I must
> > resist the temptation to do more for Struts2 as when I do I directly neglect
> > some other priority. Often the consequence is that I contribute code in
> > areas that direct benefit me and issues of importance to the community are
> > missed.
> >
> > Given that I'd like to do more but often can't justify it, I was
> > wondering whether it's appropriate for an individual or business to attempt
> > to raise funding for the direct improvement of struts2?  For example, the
> > Struts2 tags for Dojo 1.1 are one of the most frequently requested
> > improvements. I have both the skills and the time required to create them,
> > but as I don't need Dojo support myself I cannot justify the effort.  If I
> > could raise some funding for the work though I certainly would do it and I
> > suspect there are some progressive businesses out there that would
> > appreciate the cost/benefit.
> >
> > The crucial point here is that I'm not talking about donations to
> > Apache; rather I'm talking about individuals or businesses soliciting
> > funding to perform work on Struts2.  Personally I'd hate to see emails in
> > struts-users from Joe Everyman soliciting funding ("I'll fix that bug it if
> > you pay me $50 on paypal"), but on the other hand there seems to be a missed
> > opportunity to improve Struts2 here.
> >
> > How does the PMC feel about this and what are the implications?
> >
> > regards,
> > Jeromy Evans
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@...
> > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@...
> >
> >
> >
>
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[Jeromy Evans - Blue Sky Minds]

Martin Cooper wrote:
> "I think involving the foundation in anything like this could open up a
> legal minefield."
>
> Indeed. I would encourage anyone who really wants to go down that path to
> engage with the prc@ and legal-discuss@ first, to gain a full understanding
> of what would be acceptable for the foundation and why.
>
>  

Okay, thanks guys.


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[Jeromy Evans - Blue Sky Minds]

Al Sutton wrote:
>
>
> P.S. imho we should just spin-off (or kill off) the dojo plugin, if it
> needs paid-for time just to keep it up to date then I would say that
> it's not something we can support to a level that's acceptable to the
> users. I recently had a shot at updating it, but found it was far
> easier just to use YUI directly than to update the dojo plugin and
> then use the S2 dojo tags.
>

That's a good point.  If it's not important enough for someone to
volunteer to work on it then it's unlikely to receive sufficient
on-going support.

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[Don Brown-2]

I think this is a great idea, Jeromy.  The only place I think you'd
need to be careful is ensuring that you own the copyright for the code
you produce, so it can be properly contributed to the ASF.  Other than
that, go nuts.

Don

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 9:39 PM, Jeromy Evans
<jeromy.evans@...> wrote:

> Each week I try to make some voluntary contribution to an open source
> project through support or coding. As I have my own business though I must
> resist the temptation to do more for Struts2 as when I do I directly neglect
> some other priority. Often the consequence is that I contribute code in
> areas that direct benefit me and issues of importance to the community are
> missed.
>
>  Given that I'd like to do more but often can't justify it, I was wondering
> whether it's appropriate for an individual or business to attempt to raise
> funding for the direct improvement of struts2?  For example, the Struts2
> tags for Dojo 1.1 are one of the most frequently requested improvements.  I
> have both the skills and the time required to create them, but as I don't
> need Dojo support myself I cannot justify the effort.  If I could raise some
> funding for the work though I certainly would do it and I suspect there are
> some progressive businesses out there that would appreciate the
> cost/benefit.
>
>  The crucial point here is that I'm not talking about donations to Apache;
> rather I'm talking about individuals or businesses soliciting funding to
> perform work on Struts2.  Personally I'd hate to see emails in struts-users
> from Joe Everyman soliciting funding ("I'll fix that bug it if you pay me
> $50 on paypal"), but on the other hand there seems to be a missed
> opportunity to improve Struts2 here.
>
>  How does the PMC feel about this and what are the implications?
>
>  regards,
>  Jeromy Evans
>
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