Re: merging Emacs.app

[David Reitter <david.reitter@gmail.com>]

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On 9 Mar 2008, at 13:27, David Kastrup wrote:

> If David gets substantially more money out of Aquamacs than he sinks
> into it, he really needs to tell me his secret.

Unfortunately I haven't found that secret either.

I do think that adequate compensation is important quite generally.   
The usual options did not appear promising. Asking for very low  
download fees ($1-2 per download) doesn't work because micropayment  
systems are missing, and because it encourages no-value added forks.   
Selling a manual or so doesn't work because the revenue probably  
doesn't even compensate the author of the book that hasn't been  
written (and costs money to be printed).   Selling additional  
consulting services is a no-go either because Emacs is used at  
universities or by coders, but not much by enough large companies who  
would pay consultants to write Lisp code.  I like the user-driven  
"wishlist" systems where users promise sums for specific features, but  
I haven't seen them work for any project yet.

Now, money isn't the main motivator, even though it pays the rent.   
Work on free software is, in my case, booked under "academic service",  
about like when I review papers for conferences and the occasional  
journal every now and then.  But it also means that I do what's fun  
and productive, and I try to avoid other things.

But in the long run, the movement needs a better answer to the  
compensation question.


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