Criteria for GCC 4.0

[Joe Buck]

On Tue, Jun 01, 2004 at 03:46:25PM -0400, Scott Robert Ladd wrote:
> > It's not possible to change the economic model.  In free software,
> > whatever contributors are willing to contribute and the maintainers are
> > willing to accept becomes the priority.
> 
> To people outside the GCC developer community, it is very unclear as to 
> what those priorities are and how they are set. As it stands now, GCC 
> appears to be driven by those who pay for its development: vendors who 
> sell software compiled with GCC.

It is driven by the people who participate in its development, which
includes vendors as well as volunteers.  Your own participation, for
instance, has had some positive effect on GCC.

> > It is possible for a sufficiently motivated volunteer to make a
> > difference, though, by leading an effort to restructure the
> > documentation and write new documentation.
> 
> Motivation only goes so far; blind altruism is a poor way of feeding 
> one's family.

So get creative.  Write a book, find a publisher, negotiate terms so that
the text can be free.  O'Reilly and others have backed this model.

In any case, contribution to free software isn't necessarily entirely
altruistic.  Reputation is worth money, and there are many other rewards.