Slashdot Mirror

Java, OpenOffice.org, and OpenSolaris are all mainly created by Sun employees.

Actually, Linux, Firefox, Apache, SAMBA, MySQL, GCC, and the other high profile free software projects are mainly developed by people who get their salary for doing exactly that.

It works the other way as well, half the developers surveyed by the EU FLOSS project state that they do their free software work as part of their job (some indirectly, they contribute to projects they use in their work). The other half consist of equal amounts of students and hobbyists.

The myth that free software is created by unpaid volunteers is hard to kill, despite having little basis in reality. The free software people actually use tends to be created by paid professionals.

According to this EU sponsored report", more than half the free software developers make money on their free software work one way or another.

There is a lot of support for OSS in Europe, mainly in EU institutions built up in and around Maastricht.
The idea is to create a lot of research centers, not only in tech related issues but in the study of the economics and political impact of OSS as well.
In addition to that, a lot of EU countries, particularly France, Germany, and some parts of Spain are taking big steps towards goverment support for OSS. Schools in Spain are to migrate to linux in 18 months, and there is talk about doing the same in France. France runs quite a bit of its critical infrastructure (computer administrated motorways, nuclear power plants, airport traffic control, etc) on hardened linux systems.
Take a look at the following links if your interested:

http://www.flosspols.org/ http://www.flossproject.org/

dear jaruz, michael,

we didn't make a public announcement, so we didn't put it up on the MERIT website so that it could be confirmed. as questions have been raised regarding the authenticity of the announcement and MERIT's commitment to free software, please note that the following letter will be posted to the FLOSS home page as soon as possible - by monday, at any rate - so that it can be "verified". i have added the last paragraph to respond to /. (incorrect) comments regarding the support of MERIT for free software.

given some comments that MERIT "supports the patent lobby" i would also like to clarify that several of the economists listed in the EPIP conference programme were signatories and/or authors of the Economists' Letter against Software Patents sent to the European Parliament.

Moreover, Luc Soete, Director of MERIT, and I both spoke at the Sep 17th conference in the European Parliament against software patents.

best wishes,
Rishab Ghosh
Project leader FLOSS/FLOSSPOLS
MERIT

----
As director of MERIT at the University of Maastricht, I would like to inform you
that we are no longer organising the conference on the topic of Open Standards
and Libre Software in Government at UNESCO Paris, November 24-26, 2003. Until
now, MERIT was responsible for the logistics and through the FLOSSPOLS project,
EC funding for the conference. This is now wholly withdrawn.

We have taken this decision in consultation with the European Commission, whose
support for this conference was earlier being provided through the proposed
FLOSSPOLS project at MERIT.

We sincerely regret the inconvenience this may cause you. For more information
please contact us by e-mail at nov2003@infonomics.nl

For MERIT Prof. Dr. Luc Soete
Director, MERIT
Universiteit Maastricht
PO Box 616, 6200MD
Maastricht, the Netherlands
Tel: +31 43 388 3875
----
MERIT remains fully committed to its research activities in the area of Free/Libre/Open Source
Software through the EC-funded FLOSS project, and the area of FLOSS and government through
the follow-up project FLOSSPOLS. The 2-year
FLOSSPOLS project, which includes research, studies, surveys and public events related to
government and free/libre/open source software will commence later this year.
More information on the project(s) can be found on the FLOSS home page, flossproject.org