[Community] Money: Fuel or futile?

[wonderphone at posteo.de]

Hi all,

Let's discuss, whether or not money can help us take the project and 
the community further, and under which conditions.

It looks like behind every big open source project there is a 
commercial sponsor: Android: Google, Mozilla: Google, OpenOffice: 
Oracle, Ubuntu: Canonical (of Mark Shuttleworth former owner of 
Thawte)... The big, complicated and user-friendly projects have a stable 
funding but also a strong influence of the donor. Therefore, the 
OpenPhoenux community can only get stronger and stay as it is at the 
same time when it funds itself.

Maybe this is completely wrong. Money can kill the community spirit, 
the hobby and leisure feeling, the experimental atmosphere. Once money 
is introduced everybody will wait and see what he or she can get out of 
it instead of just starting to do what he or she thinks is useful.

I believe we can make a sustainable democratic cooperative business out 
of the project community. I say that to reveal my opinion, not to 
influence you. Please write to the list, whether you think money can be 
the fuel for the jet engine of the Phoenix or whether it will just stage 
its next incarnation - by burning it.

Thank you for your insights

Oliver