[OpenAFS] Re: [OpenAFS-devel] An open letter from the OpenAFS Council of Elders

[Rodney M. Dyer]

At 11:42 AM 5/11/2008, Esther Filderman wrote:
>There have been mechanisms in the past to directly fund OpenAFS; the
>AFS & Kerberos Best Practices Workshop raises money for OpenAFS, and
>there is a fund through Usenix, to take advantage of it being a 501c3.
>
>As it's own 501c3 corporation OpenAFS would be able to accept
>donations without a third party, something that would probably make it
>easier -- and more comfortable -- for many sites to do.  Additionally,
>there are resources that neither company can always directly provide,
>especially things like hardware.

I have personally donated to OpenAFS, but quite simply, as I am not 
independently wealthy, my donation isn't worth more than a few hours of 
consulting.  My point was that if any IT shops are like ours, we can't just 
"donate" money.  Especially as a state funded institution, we can only 
"buy" products or services that fulfill our needs.  When it comes to 
OpenAFS consulting, we actually need to create a justification.  OpenAFS, 
as open source software, is competing against commercial-off-the-shelf 
(COTS) software, the traditional "cost" in IT computing.  Maintenance 
contracts are typically purchased with the COTS software which is implied 
justification.  Consulting costs are much easier to push through purchasing 
channels in most companies than donations.

Rodney