Re: [Caml-list] Re: The OCaml Community (aka back fromthe Developer Days)

[Kuba Ober <ober.14@osu.edu>]

On Wednesday 30 January 2008, David Allsopp wrote:
> > It would make sense as a business venture when you'd throw in some
> > economy of scale. MS can sell visual studio for peanuts, and keep that
> > business unit out of the red, of course because they sell so many.
> >
> > For relatively small projects like OCaml, any "pay for a feature" scheme
> > would necessarily be out of reach of many customers.
>
> Vim does this very well with "sponsor a feature"[1] - all you need is a
> structured wish-list that people can mark a (financial) interest in. That
> way, if you want a feature, and so do other people, then there may be
> enough combined sponsorship to pay a (reasonable) amount for it. Bram only
> requires enough to pay for a basic salary so he can take time off work.
>
> While I have no idea how many people use Vim, I would imagine that it's
> rather fewer than MS Visual Studio suggesting that the finance model
> "works".

Yeah, if you have a "feature accounts" where people can pool the money, then 
of course it'd work.

My assumption was that one person pays for a single feature.

Cheers, Kuba