Re: [Fsfe-uk] Kernel hacker cooperatives?

[Alex Hudson]

On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 16:01 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> I saw some press from
> 2001 about freedevelopers.net, such as
> http://linuxpr.com/releases/2633.html
> http://www.linux.com/feature/9617
> but I can't find them now.  Does anyone know what happened?

My hazy recollection is that Tony Stanco - the guy who drove fd.net -
eventually fell out with the CEO of fd.net, RMS, and he went off and did
eGovOs. Or he was already doing it and did it more, if that makes sense.
I may be completely wrong about that, but that's my feeling for what
happened.

fd.net was very much about paying people directly to write free
software, which isn't something I've actually seen anyone succeed at as
a business model. I suspect they never completed any genuine paying
jobs.

> In general, I've been disappointed that I know of almost as many
> Microsoft-certified and similar cooperatives as free software ones.
> Does anyone know other current free software cooperatives,
> particularly in the UK?

I don't know of any, I'm afraid. I'm not surprised the MS ones are as
easy to find - I would have thought it would be easier to co-operate on
what are a relatively narrow set of products compared to the free
software galaxy. 

Cheers,

Alex.