[CentOS] CentOS is dead, long live CentOS

Ben Gore ben at cleosys.com
Fri Sep 18 18:09:54 UTC 2009


<johnny at centos.org> wrote:
>   
>> I STILL do not understand why anyone would care what CentOS does
>> with money donated by people who used the product and wanted to
>> donate.
>>     
I used to think this way too, until I got burned.

Most people are reasonable and know you are providing an excellent 
service for free. But there are getting to be more and more of the 
conspiracy theorists out there who wonder what your real motivation is. 
It seems these people can't conceive of anyone doing something for 
nothing. Perhaps nowadays rightfully so after seeing the number of cases 
of theft and fraud in both high and low profile cases.

In my case I arranged an upgrade of communications equipment and 
services for a volunteer agency I was a member of. It was a swap deal, 
where the new equipment would be purchased at wholesale price if the old 
(and about to be useless) equipment was traded in to the distributor. It 
wasn't a high value transaction, less than $10,000US, but for years 
afterward I was accused of making big piles of money on the deal by 
certain people. I can guarantee you that the only money made by anyone 
in the deal was the manufacturer and maybe the distributor made some 
money by selling the old equipment as parts to someone.

Personally I have a problem with agencies that solicit donations, then 
expend a considerable amount of money on "administrative costs" or other 
expenses that don't really achieve the organization's primary mission. 
One well known agency that comes to mind is the Red Cross. Granted, they 
are a large and complex organization, but there is something just not 
right about them paying their top executives what is reputed to be 
hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salary.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that CentOS does this, but it is in 
the Project's best interests to make public some info, perhaps even some 
sort of budget so you know what the expected costs are. Maybe even a 
sort of "wish" list where money can be earmarked for certain objectives; 
i.e. "if we were able to raise X amount of money to buy Y, we would be 
able to accomplish Z". Who knows, large donors have been known to either 
fill in a hole in a fund raiser or make other creative donation programs 
like a matching program "For every $1 donated we will provide a match of 
$1". Already  the project gets donations of equipment, and if a 
mechanism was in place to allow documentation of donations, I know many 
people and companies who would rather give more money to a worthy cause 
than the government if they can offset the donation in their taxes.

Ideally, this funding management task should be given to a person (or 
persons) who are not active in the trenches of development, but who is 
aware of the needs and have the time to manage the funding as a primary 
task so as not to take away valuable time from the developers. If this 
task is given to one person, there should be a backup, who can fill in 
in the event the primary person is unavailable, and to provide a timely 
checks-and-balances system. I think that there also should be a 
contingency fund that could be filled to a certain point, then any 
overflow can be used for additional purchases as needed. General status 
of the project's finances should be available to donors on the internet, 
and detailed finances should be available (at minimum) to all the key 
contributors to the project at any time. I think this would bring MORE 
money into the project, since donors could see at a glance the overall 
financial status, and may even lead to more widespread adoption of 
CentOS if the project is shown to be financially stable.

I'm not sure if this already takes place, but I do feel that the heavy 
contributors to the project should get certain "perks", like having 
their internet connectivity paid for by the project or other similar 
concessions if funding allows. But also the primary needs of the project 
have to be fulfilled first, like making sure there is adequate equipment 
available to test and build releases. The perks might be used as a tool 
to attract other qualified developers, who would have a clear path to 
achieve and maintain the status of "project slave" or whatever title 
might be given to someone who has proven they have the necessary 
knowledge and capabilities.

There will be those who say that anyone who get these "perks" are not 
"doing it for free". But if the time and knowledge invested to make the 
project work isn't there there is no project, and the value of the perks 
is far outweighed by the results of the work. The people who whine about 
this are the same ones that complain about everything in their lives, 
but few actually do anything to make their lives better.

With the reach of CentOS, the project should continue to be successful, 
and grow more so over time. CentOS isn't dead, it's just having growing 
pains.

Thanks again to everyones who works so hard to make it happen.

-Ben









More information about the CentOS mailing list