Crowdfunding critical infrastructure

Thu Jun 27 17:46:28 UTC 2019

Mehmet Akcin <mehmet at akcin.net>:
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 08:41 Eric S. Raymond <esr at thyrsus.com> wrote:
> 
> > The members of this list are, I think, much more aware tham most that
> > a lot of critical Internet software is maintained by unfunded
> > volunteers, and of the systemic risks that result from this.
> 
> Please explain. This is not true.

Tell it to Dave Taht, who broke his health solving the bufferbloat problem.

Tell it to Patrick Volkerding, who sweated to created the first Linux
distribution - inventing a whole tier of infrastructure we now take
for granted - only to end up in deep financial trouble because other
people make all the money selling the CDs.

Tell it to me, leading GIFLIB and GPSD and NTPsec and 48 other
projects and looking at having my life savings possibly wiped out by a
relatively low-grade medical problem because I'm not on anyone's
payroll.

Tell it to Harlan Stenn, who worked on NTP for over a decade and could
barely get anyone to kick in enough money to buy coffee.

If you do not understand the scope of this problem, you are *astoundingly*
ignorant.  And probably alone on this list.

> This needs governance and transparency around it. Just launching a page
> isn’t going to get you anywhere “sustsinable”

Every loadsharer keeps control of their money at all times.  Nobody is
makng decisions for them; the most the advisers can do is suggest 
priorities.  Everyting happens in public. How does it get more
transparent than that?
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>