On Sun, 1 Dec 2002 22:01:49 -0800, "Robin Rowe" <rower@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: [Carol wrote:] > > what i have found to be The GIMP's most charming quality is the lack of > > funding. > > GIMP hasn't always lacked funding. The original Film Gimp sponsors (before > it became Film Gimp) funded two GIMP developers for a year. That is, paid > them full salaries to work on GIMP. That's right. But Carol was partially right in her message: the GIMP gets very little direct funding (actually, none except for the cases that you mentioned, IIRC). Most of the funding is indirect. As Carol mentioned, the hosting of the various GIMP pages is probably the most significant contribution. Hosting of the GIMP CVS repository and Bugzilla as part of the GNOME project is probably the other big contribution. Besides this, the indirect funding comes from some employers who allow a few GIMP developers to work on the GIMP from time to time. Or, as in my case, some employers who tolerate that their employees spend a part of their spare time on the GIMP as long as the "normal" work is getting done. In the end, I think that the GIMP gets a rather small amount of funding, direct or indirect, compared to some other products or projects. As I wrote in a previous message, I think that there are not that many active developers (i.e., people who spend a significant amount of time working on the code, which is different from the contributors like myself who spend some time on side activities such as the bug database and contribute patches from time to time). Maybe I am underestimating the effort that many people put into the GIMP, but I would guess that the total contribution of all GIMP developers is equivalent to less than five full-time developers. -Raphaël
