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Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 02:29:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu>
To: Federico Ferreres <fferreres@ojf.com>
cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Funding GPL projects or funding the GPL?
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On 27 Jul 2002, Federico Ferreres wrote:

> The fGPL scheme means you pay $10, and you get code in exchange. The
> developer receiving the funds either buys food, a computer, a book, or
> maybe even uses it for a nice trip with his/her family after their hard
> work is done. Let me know when you find the pyramid!

Sigh...  That stops working at the same point where pyramid does - when
number of recepients becomes a sufficiently large fraction of all potential
participants.  It is not sustainable.

Simple math: Debian got several thousand developers.  Most of the packages
contain both contributions from said developers and stuff from upstream.
By very conservative estimates it's tens of thousands.  If your $10 is
per package update - it's impossible to pay.  _Really_ impossible - on a
reasonable system it will easily amount to $50 _daily_.  If it's $10 per
year - count the number of installations and look how much it will give
for one developer.

It won't work for the same reason why pyramids are unsustainable - when
you have too many recepients, both go to hell.  And there _is_ too many
for that to work.

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