March 29th, 2006
Save the Coders Foundation
Some folks can’t get their heads around the idea that there are important areas of open source that don’t have a viable business model.
Yet they remain important.
The OSDL understands this, and so they’ve launched a fellowship program.
This may be the real march of the penguins.
The idea is that programmers will submit projects to a 10-member Technical Advisory Board, which will work with the OSDL board of directors and choose the winning entries. OSDL has also placed out a hat so people can donate to the fund which will support the fellows.
The importance of a project is not always based on how much money you can make from it. Linux itself wasn’t like that. But some projects without big business models, like Linux, can enable other projects to emerge which do have viable business models. Some work seeds, in other words, while other work fertilizes.
If you were a fellow, or could back a fellow, what would you have that fellow do?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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