Deriving economic profits from writing FREE software?
Zooko Journeyman
zooko at xs4all.nl
Tue Feb 10 21:51:28 PST 1998
I have an idea for a model for deriving economic profits from
writing free software. It requires dcash (specifically,
some money that is cheaply and easily transferrable in small
amounts).
People submit requests for changes to a "wishlist"/"bug report
list". Along with these requests they send dcash. Various
mechanisms of market and/or trusted intermediary ensure that,
on the whole, the hackers who satisfy the most highly valued
wishes get the most money. See
Grigg 1997
for one good idea of how such a market could operate.
We already have extensive networks of wishlists, bug tracking
systems, and the rest of an integrated open, distributed
software development system (e.g. Linux, Debian, many others).
Given the ability to pay (perhaps credit cards could be made to
work here? Low cost credit card transactions? Cybercash?),
we could start trying to add this kind of flow of cash to some
such systems. Unfortunately, i fear that such attempts may
fail and disrupt currently working systems...
--Zooko
P.S. Hi, y'all. I've switched continents, contexts, CPUs,
sensitivities and perhaps more, but i'm fine. Thanks for
missing me.
p.p.s. as per <a href="http://www.slashdot.org/slashdot.cgi?mode=article&artnum=685">
this slashdot.org article</a>, it is called "Open Software"
from now on, not "Free Software". Tell the kids.
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