[TYPO3-hci] ...was inspiring people to slave, now lets talk turkey...

[Erik Svendsen]

Hello Daniel, and also Matthew (and others to)

> the conversation about taxes and more money:
> Hm, I hope I didn't limit something important. It's just so, that this
> is not a topic I can help with. I've got much to do with
> documentation,
> cannot "dance on one more wedding". (it's a german ideom - maybe known
> in UK, too)

Thats correct! But even if you have found your way to support TYPO3 (and 
it's a important way) it's a big help to make others aware of the possibilities 
to support TYPO3 through donations or/and membership in the T3 Association.

> But you should contact some people who care for the financial stuff. I
> think there're some who find this very important. Maybe a new
> project-team to find out new solutions about it?

I suppose there are people today that care about financial stuff - for instance 
T3A (I know there are). 

But as everyone participating at T3CON06 may understand, the use of money 
to pay for work done in an Open Source community isn't straight forward. 
TYPO3 have built it's foundation, and maybe most of it's soul on voluntary 
work, which also is motivated through factors that are typical for voluntarly 
works (fun, appreciation, status, respect, relationships. Everyone who has 
attended on T3BOARD and T3CON know about the latter). Of course a lot of 
work that all of us benefits from is done because of economical incentives 
to, mainly by agencies and freelancers that make their living of TYPO3.

When you start to pay for development (or other important work) in a bit 
larger scale, you are in real danger to change the balance between non-economical 
motivation factors and money as motivation factors. Mostly because money 
are for most people an extremly strong factor, and often change your behavior. 
If this balance shifts, you may have new people on board, but you also have 
the risk to lose others (who may be more important for the future). So it's 
a difficult task to make the decisions about which part of necessary work 
should be done with money as a motivation factor. And I think the only part 
of the TYPO3 community who can make this decission on a broad basis is the 
T3A board. And I know they are aware of this.

And to make my statement clear. I believe TYPO3 can benefit from a larger 
financial base, because I think there are lot of work that are nearly impossible 
to do without using some money. For instance security review of all extensions 
(takes time and are not what coders do for fun). Also a lot of work regarding 
to typo3.org, communication and support of teams are nearly impossible to 
do without some funding.

Myself don't think the tax idea is a good idea. In fact it's a stupid one, 
primarly because it's somehow not the expectations of people that looks at 
Open Source. But Joey idea of a support line could bed a better one. This 
is partly the economical foundation of eZ Publish. But I think a lot could 
be done, as some has said, in making it more easy to donate. T3A has both 
PayPal and Moneybookers acount, they have made the possibility to use it 
to sponsor the solving of bugs. But work could be done in marketing membership, 
and the possibility to donate a bit more (lot more). T3A hasn't more than 
a little over 200 member. Looking at the size of the community that should 
at least be doubled.

And we don't need a new team for this (TYPO3 has nearly enough teams), only 
people who see this as important and are dedicated to do a long term job 
on behalf of the T3A. If they have to be sponsored with some money, thats 
OK for me. Because they will probably accumulate more.

WBR,
Erik Svendsen
www.linnearad.no