Re: Itching and scratching (Re: source mgt. requirements solicitation)

[Tom Lord <lord at emf dot net>]

       > And, btw, surprise!: In the free software world, corporate
       > GCC hackers are the relative fat cats.  Go figure.

       That's because GCC hackers are doing things that are worth
       serious amounts of money to people that have it to spend.

I didn't mean that it is wrong for you to be well paid.  I meant that
you have a lot of clout.

	Speaking more generally, the folks that get paid to do free
	software are the ones who are solving the problems of people
	with the money.  It's up to us to be clever enough to figure
	out to solve the specific problems in a way that improves
	architecture and infrastructure.  That was a key but
	underappreciated aspect of Cygnus' development contracts; we
	would always try to go after projects that included
	infrastructure improvement, but if necessary we would do
	something that was random but lucrative and use the profits to
	pay for generic work.

Was it customers who underappreciated that?  or was that a selling
point?

	To put it more simply, find a rich person with an itch, and
	offer to scratch it for them. :-)

Ah, well, "The Cabots speak only to Lodges and the Lodges speak only
to God."

-t