"Then I came across the The Development Cloud. This is a company
that has found it mutually beneficial to share fifty percent of its
profit – which is derived from closed source software –
to reward developers of associated open source software projects.
(See details here.) I think this is fantastic.
"While some FOSS purists will undoubtedly squirm at the idea of
closed source software funding open source efforts, the fact
remains that this funding rewards the hard work of individuals
creating open source software. So despite any perceived
controversy, I see this as a positive rather than a negative
outcome.
"Hired vs partnership?
In a perfect world, I would love to see open source developers
working together in orchestrated harmony to make modern open source
software available to all who wish to use it. And to a large
extent, some variation of this has in fact happened, in part due to
sponsorships and grants, in addition to those simply volunteering
their time."
