Some people think of the Open Source community as a Zen-like band of code-warriors who couldn’t be bothered with earthly pleasures — an army of hackers willing to solve any technical problem without compensation. In reality, developers write Open Source software for a reason: sometimes it’s to solve a particular problem (”scratching your own itch”), sometimes it’s to be associated with a cool project, sometimes it’s for peer recognition, and sometimes — if you’re one of the lucky few — it’s for money.
Some people think of the Open Source community as a Zen-like band of code-warriors who couldn’t be bothered with earthly pleasures — an army of hackers willing to solve any technical problem without compensation. In reality, developers write Open Source software for a reason: sometimes it’s to solve a particular problem (”scratching your own itch”), sometimes it’s to be associated with a cool project, sometimes it’s for peer recognition, and sometimes — if you’re one of the lucky few — it’s for money.
It’s ironic, really. Developers can have a hard time getting funding for their Open Source work, while at the same time, the Open Source users may have a hard time fin
ding developers. Even when they are willing to pay, some users simply don’t know how to ask the Open Source community for help.
Enter sourceXchange. SourceXchange is a Web site, developed and hosted by my company, O’Reilly & Associates, that hooks up developers with those willing to fund Open Source software projects. A printer company looking for someone to write Linux device drivers, a database vendor looking for a Perl implementation of its client libraries, or an IT manager seeking a new Apache module to interface with her proprietary inventory software — all of these “sponsors” could use sourceXchange to finddevelopers for their projects.
How does it work? Developers register…
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