Re: alternatives for funding

[John W. Eaton]

On 12/12/2013 01:51 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> Okay, which part of your plan do you want to work on? Would you like
> to work on improving the commercial Octave web page or figuring out
> how much to charge for Octave? Do you want to conduct market research
> to see where the money is and how we can get it? Do you want to ask
> the Scilab guys how much money they're making and how?
>
> I'm talking with the FSF guys now on the support contract that will
> convince your boss to give us money.

I don't think the FSF, as a tax exempt charity in the US, is allowed to 
accept donations that are contracts for specific work.

Further, I'm not sure that the Octave community is the right place to go 
for paid support.  If people want to start a company to provide support 
for pay, that's a separate issue.  But we have no formal business 
structure set up for this purpose and that's not what the FSF is set up 
to do either.

If you are interested in working out a support contact with me, then 
please contact me directly.  I understand that Felipe would like to have 
a simple way to pay $X for a support contract and I have considered 
offering something like that but have not done so for various reasons 
that I'd rather discuss privately, not on this list.

jwe