 Utilization of funding in FOSS projects are magintudes higher than in commercial products. Amount of work and things achieved per $ (€ or whatever) seems literally 1000x bigger comparing to modern proprietary sofware. At least I have such perception at the moment from looking at various FOSS projects and their accounting data and comparing it with salaries and fundings/investments in companies I know about. 2 comments
@Ninjatrappeur Also thought about absent of management level and roadmaps, KPIs, etc. Yep, lacking of funding and underpayment or even unpaid work are definitely into play, but at the same time I find many people to care deeply about what they do, to being careful to environment, old hardware and resources in general, being less wasteful. However, with different funding scenarios and rates it can change(?). About personal story: unfortunate state of the field, but hope it will change soon. |
Gregory's Server
Sure, efficiently using money is a nice thing. However, why are we so efficient? Are we particularly smart? I don't think so. Does removing the management layer improves the dollar-to-feature efficiency? Maybe? Sometimes?
But what if we were so much efficient because we're constantly lacking proper funding? What if most of the valuable FOSS work we're producing is done on an unpaid basis?
Looking at the NL-Net rates (which, thanks god, exists, and is definitely a very nice and important org that does tremendous work!), we're at least 1/2 of a decent EU contracting rate, almost 1/4 of a decent US contracting rate.
Some personal backstory: I'm in my 30s, I'd like to own my house and don't have a lot of money coming from my family, clearly not enough to inherit a house. Working for FOSS full time is not an option for me to reach this goal at the moment. I have to work as a contractor that sometimes ships proprietary code. And it deeply sucks.
Sure, efficiently using money is a nice thing. However, why are we so efficient? Are we particularly smart? I don't think so. Does removing the management layer improves the dollar-to-feature efficiency? Maybe? Sometimes?