Negotiating Pay for Open Source Work?

OpenSourceforMoney asks: "For about nine months now I've been working on an Open Source software project; the first release was five months ago. It's reasonably popular given its age -- several hundred users at least (users, not downloads) -- but despite my best attempts, I've been unable to get even a few dollars in donations to help support this (and being a student, I really need to get some money from somewhere). Now suddenly I've been approached by a company which wants to pay me to continue working on this project. How should I handle this? Should I ask for an hourly rate, or should I come up with specific targets and attach prices to each? How much money is it reasonable to ask for, for doing work which I'd end up doing (albeit more slowly) even if I wasn't getting paid? How have Slashdot readers handled the transition from working on a project for fun to being paid to work on it?"

Comments

Re:a good price

[poot_rootbeer]

$25 an hour if they give you benefits. If they don't, insist on at least $40.

But seriously, a lot of other variables need to be taken into consideration too. How many hours a week do you want to work on it? What else is going on in your life that will be competing with it for your time? Who will own the copyright to the code you will produce (remember that "open source" and "public domain" mean different things)? What specific features do they want you to add to your software, and how does that match up with your own development plans?

Re:go for targets

[bigdavex]

Secondly, there's cost of living. It seems that a disproportionate amount of visiters to technical sites are from California. Far higher cost of living.

As the people with the money don't actually give a shit where you live, this isn't going to be that much of a factor.