http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/10792_3338411_1

...the stereotype of the lonely programmer working in the wee hours is
seriously outdated. The second generation of open source projects responds
to specific business demands, and the people building these applications are
getting paid -- even if the code they write will be free.

"The open source developer today is largely a professional developer who's
been at it for 10-plus [years] and is on a corporate payroll," said Jeff
Hawkins, vice president of Novell's (Quote, Chart) Linux business office.
"Novell and IBM and HP employ people to work on open source projects."
...
Bickel said there are two ways to fund free software: Create a company that
can profit from services or enhancements to the free code, or find a
corporate sugar daddy. Since the mid-1990s, corporate sponsors have played
an increasing role. At first, they hired developers, then gave them free
rein to work on open source.

For example, according to Hall, IBM (Quote, Chart) hired Ken Coar, a
contributor to the Apache Project, so that he could work on it full-time.
"It helped out with their WebSphere, I'm sure," he said. "If you see someone
who is a really good programmer who's developing a project that's imperative
to you, to hire them makes good business sense."
...

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *