[mythtv-users] Paying one or some of the developers

[Michael T. Dean]

On 09/04/2006 08:56 PM, Dean Collins wrote:

>>Also, I didn't read that "the only measore of a project's success...is
>>making money." I would say that MythTV is a great success. I've been
>>enjoying using it for about five months now.
>>    
>>
>I certainly don't value it that way and wasn't the one that said it,
>though the editing certainly made it seem that way.
>
>I think the only way to value an open source application is the adoption
>percentage of possible implementations. (eg Open source fulfilment
>ratio="total users"/"potential users" X 100).
>
>It doesn't matter how good MythTV is it will never be in every living
>room but there are plenty of possible developments that would make it a
>more readily adopted application.
>

Doesn't this assume that the intention of said open source project is to 
garner a large installed user base?  I wouldn't say that's always a 
valid assumption.

Sometimes, someone just gets tired of the rather low quality cable box 
his cable company provides with their digital cable service and decides 
he could create a better one.  Once he gets something working, he then 
decides others may find value in using the same application, so out of 
his own generosity, he makes the source code available under an 
open-source license.*

Mike

*Any similarity to open-source projects--real or fictional--may be 
coincidental ( http://mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythInfo ).  Not 
intended to represent the reason for the existence of/the intention 
of/the goals of/anything to do with the MythTV project.  Only a 
hypothetical example.