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Re: [ox-en] Paid linux programmers: how do they work



Hi Michel and all,

a very interesting development regarding this discussion (from slashdot) here: http://slashdot.org/articles/07/05/15/1849226.shtml

"An anonymous reader sends along a posting from the Grooveking blog on a group of Stanford students who got together to help promote Firefox and ended up releasing a long overdue eBay Toolbar for Firefox before Mozilla and eBay could release their jointly developed extension in Europe. Mozilla's COO said the preemptive release of the eBay Toolbar had ruffled some feathers among European eBay execs. "Besides basic search features, it removes external ads on the site and allows users to see thumbnail pictures on ALL search items, even those sellers didn't pay for. An eBay toolbar has been long overdue... eBay can't be too enthusiastic about this toolbar since it cuts directly into its main sources of revenue: ads and thumbnail fees. But eBay users get a really good deal."



On Tue, 15 May 2007 11:41:24 [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED], Michael Bauwens <michelsub2003 yahoo.com> wrote:

I guess some of you have seen this:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/090507_Database/09May2007_data05.php

where Microsoft's platform director argues Linux 'as free software', already no longer exists

I have a question as to the exact way the community and the corporation cooperate

- open source remains mostly nonproprietary software, but is increasinly produced by paid employes, true or not true?

 - which side dominates: the corporate or the community?

- if the community is still a core element of open source, what is their relation to the paid employees

- how are these paid employees working: as free as community programmers, or are they under a command and control hierarchy; wny does the crowding out factor not apply (i.e. paid employees discouraging further work by volunteers, as it often happens, why not here?)

- who decides on the main strategic directions of free software development?

- if the paid employees are free in their work, does their salary then not function as a kind of basic income, not related to their exact 'work'??

I think these questions are pretty crucial in determining the future course of free software. The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer alternatives. Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html; video interview, at http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm


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