Hire Open Source Developers -- or Partner With Them?

"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."

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