Re: [tlug] kickstarter for open source...

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Edward Middleton writes:

 > From the point of view of the person sending funds, you are paying
 > to have it done now.  The assumption is that kickstarter sets up
 > some form of contract or legal obligation for the recipient to act
 > and that failing to satisfy the obligation will have a
 > significantly negative impact on the receivers future earning
 > potential.  This looks more like contracting to me then any of the
 > other analogies given.

Quite so, in equilibrium.  But there's a non-equilibrium dynamics
here.  At present there are relatively few projects, and a lot of
money as yet uncommitted.  The project proposers are probably smarter
than the average bear and more likely to complete projects (many
probably have fairly complete projects in hand when they post to
Kickstarter).

I think that balance is likely to change dramatically, and the
long-run equilibrium is likely to be much less favorable to FLOSS
development.  IMHO FWIW and YMMV, of course.