[Tycon3] do you know...

[Michael Scharkow]

Hi Kasper,

Kasper Skårhøj wrote:

> In my view this is how the two events are segmented:
> 
> TyCon: Expensive event for web professionals sent by their employee to
> learn about TYPO3 and nothing else.
> Snowboard tour: Inexpensive event for anyone who enjoys the social
> aspect mixed in with technical etc.; Students.

This is a nice clarification. So I guess it was just a communication
issue after all...

> About the money calculations some of you did: If it REALLY is that tons
> of money is being made on this event, do you really think that it is
> buying Jürgen Egeling a big yacht? And if it did, do you know what
> amount of money Jürgen recently invested into TYPO3 infrastructure? Did
> you thank him? What if the association actually gets income from this
> event? Is that a good or a bad thing? Its an overly GOOD thing! Imagine
> if we manage to make money on the very people who make money using
> TYPO3! Isn't that exactly what all of you students want to see! That
> TYPO3 development is funded by the guys who have money! You should
> rather appreciate that the association is looking at what assets might
> bring it money for development rather that complaining about it.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this business model but again, a
lot of people (including myself) did not recognize the conference as an
expo with paid tutorials. It's even quite reasonably priced for that,
and if the association gets some revenue from this, great.

> But the reality is that TYPO3 version 5 will not see the light
> of day if we haven't money to pay guys like me, Robert, Rene, Julle and
> whoever to commit themselves for more than just spare time. I have been
> working close to fulltime on TYPO3 for the last 2 years. But I also have
> to obey the rules of society; Food, transportation, working gear, house
> payments. None of that comes for free just because I'm a nice guy. 

Nobody denies this fact. And I'm happy that at least some core devs can
make a living by working full-time on TYPO3. However, I do think an open
source project even as big as TYPO3 *can* be developed in spare time,
although probably at a much slower speed. In many cases when a new
project/chunk of features is planned, the first question is: "Who
sponsors us to do this." Like the TYPO3 project could use money *rather*
than any other contributions.

> I
> really hope the conference will make a big revenue so I don't have to
> worry about peoples sparetime commitments but can rely them to deliver
> what is paid for.

Silly question but: Has TYPO3 ever relied on sparetime commitments? Did
it really fail so miserably that this development model is a no-no?

> Sorry for being a little rough, but I felt it was right to be so.

Kasper, that wasn't even close to rough. You need to practice that in
order to get into the Kernel or OpenBSD dev lists ;)

Thanks a lot for the enlightening posting!

Greetings,
Michael