On Friday 26 August 2005 00:22, Ludovic Strappazon wrote: > Hi, > > I agree with Arno. > > There's also something wich hurts me : a small company with ~ 2 servers > and 10 workstation would pay 100 $, and a General Electric, for example, > would pay only 500 $ ! Well, 100 $ is given compared to commercial > software, but it is not equitable in my opinion.
> > With the system proposed by Arno, the contribution of the companies > would be proportioned to their size by their use of > contractors/consultants which would be the "real contributors". Well, first any system of payment is generally not equitable because poor people cannot buy luxury homes, and because individuals receive something free while corporations pay. It is easy to imagine all kinds of systems, and it is possible to imagine systems that are more "equitable". However, to make something more "equitable" generally increases the complexity, which makes it harder for the customer to understand what he/she should pay, and much harder for me to keep track of it all. If it isn't simple and relatively easily verifiable then I won't do it. I would prefer to let Bacula slowly die away rather than create a complicated nightmare of administration and frustration. A scheme that might be possible is one to which I provided a link the other day. It is based on the number of computers. But tell me how would anyone verify that? None of that is public record or information that companies have the habit of giving out. Gross revenues is something very simple, every company *must* compute it if nothing other than for taxes, and for governments, the department knows to the last cent their budget for the year (equivalent to gross revenues). > > Also, the status of contributor could give some voting rights to decide > what are the priority items on the todolist... I'm not sure there will be any more voting, though I don't want to exclude it because I am looking for companies to find the resources or contribute for what they want. At the moment (this may change), I feel I have done my part for Bacula and would like to implement the projects that please me. If there are general funds available to encourage programmers, then perhaps voting would be appropriate. However, even the last voting we had was fairly complicated (I had to use a spreadsheet), so I cannot imagine having additional weightings per company/person the work of keeping track of all that and ensuring that it was properly entered on a spreadsheet would largely overwhelm me. > > Ludovic Strappazon > > Arno Lehmann a écrit : > > Hi, > > > > Kern Sibbald wrote: > >> 2. Bacula Foundation > >> 3. Bacula Funding Idea > >> > >> > >> http://www.bacula.org/OpenSourceFunding.html Your comments are welcome. > > > > The ongoing discussion is interesting, but I thought of something a > > little different after reading your document. > > > > I'm not thinking about the Bacula Foundation questions, that's another > > decision, but about the funding problem. > > > > You want to charge the users (some of them), relying on fairness. > > > > I think this is not the best approach, especially since many corporate > > users (the companies, not the people!) will have difficulties paying > > for a license: > > Mainly, they get somehing they can also get for free - bacula > > binaries. (More below). > > They do not get something they want to pay for: Guaranteed support > > from Bacula, which means you (or, later, the Foudation). > > > > Concerning binaries: Would you want to provide binaries for all > > platforms people who pay for have? I hink this is not realistic... I > > know about bacula running on AIX, different flavours of Linux and > > BSDs, Sun, HP-UX, Tru64 (?), MacOS, Windows, and probably I forgot the > > other half. > > If you want people to pay for the binaries, you have to provide the > > ones they need - but you want to avoid becoming a software company. > > > > Now, what do companies who want to use bacula and need support do now? > > > > (Admittedly, I've got no such costumers, but who knows what happens > > when time goes by?) > > > > They pay a consultant, contractor, or however you call it, for a > > backup solution. > > > > So, my suggestion: > > Don't try to charge the end users, charge resellers and consultants. > > > > If you want to keep the GPL, which you want, I want, and other > > probably want, too, you might try the following. > > > > Bacula is a trademark, so nobody may use that name without your > > permission. > > So, when someone, for example I, want to sell bacula-based services or > > solutions, I probably want to stick the label "Bacula Expert" to my > > shirt. > > > > You (or the foundation) could sell such labels (and logo use - the bat > > _is_ nice!) > > > > For example, to call yourself an "authorized bacula consultant" (ABC, > > sounds good? ;-), you would need to contribute to bacula, and to pay, > > for example, 10% of your net revenue you make with bacula. > > You could leave to figure out the actual amount to the ABC - they > > should know what bacula is worth and probably be more likely to give > > money. > > > > Or you could become an authorized bacula distributor who only pays but > > doesn't contribute. > > > > It would be the foundations duty to determine what is a real > > contribution or what a ABD would cost. > > > > To be listed on the bacula web site as professional support, you'd, of > > course, need to be a contributor :-) > > > > The central idea: Let the ones who are most likely to know the value > > of the work put into bacula decide what to pay. > > > > And now please explain to me why this couldn't work :-) > > > > Arno -- Best regards, Kern ("> /\ V_V ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
