[Freedombox-discuss] Paid FB developers

[John Gilmore]

> Along the lines - it's clear that FreedomBox lack of full-time
> dedicated developers in all areas.
> I think it's due to unclear money-rising and resource planning policy ...
> Experienced developers, architects, designers aren't fighting for
> it(FBX), because they work full-day on other, paid jobs.

I agree.

I've started a side discussion with James Vasile about me donating to
the FreedomBox Foundation to allow them to pay some programmers or
user interface designers.  I plan to summarize what I learn, to the
list.

After watching Bdale's video, I think most of the people on the inside
have been shoveling the stables (doing work that's necessary but not
sexy, e.g. prying loose the GPL source code of some of the DreamPlug
drivers, filing charity incorporation forms with the government)
and working at their non-FreedomBox jobs.  I hope to help, both with
a donation and with some public communication about what work is
readily fundable (i.e. we know what we want done, and we know who we
want to hire to do it), so we can raise the money to get it done.

With a backbone of (a) paid developer(s), and a regular release
process, it would become much easier to integrate code and design and
documentation contributions from all the volunteers.  That would
create a "virtuous circle" as volunteers saw their contributions move
into the release, encouraging them and their friends to contribute
more.  And as other potential donors saw us cutting regularly
improving releases, that would encourage them to donate, to speed up
the work in general, or to integrate new subsystems of particular
interest to that donor.

	John Gilmore