alt.barney.die.die.die
alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die

Indeed it was....

I have tried for years to find a funding source for Axiom, an open source computer algebra project. I checked with the NSF, DARPA, and several companies.

If I were at a University there would be no problem. I could submit a grant proposal, they send the money to the Provost, he sends it to me, and HE ACCOUNTS FOR IT. The snag in trying to fund open source appears, in every case, that there needs to be trusted accounting. So, the problem is simple. We need a firm whose job it is to receive, disburse, and ACCOUNT FOR, grants and donations.

That seems simple enough. Set up a small shop (1 person?) who is paid to manage funds, handle taxes, handle banking, handle receipts and invoices. How hard can this be, right?

IBM contributes to open source through a Linux foundation. I contacted the Linux foundation about setting up an accountant or two to handle the accounting. They never replied. I contacted several people I know at IBM to "donate accounting services" or fund an open source accounting person. They said it was not possible.

The money would be useful to pay for things like servers (currently costing me about $3000 per year out of my pocket), or fund a conference, or fund developers to attend the usual conferences. It would not be to pay developers.

Anyway, I have tried to fund this project for nearly 12 years and have yet to be successful. If you can figure out a way to handle the accounting, I'm all ears. Send your ideas to daly at axiom-developer.org

Tim Daly

What I said was that the issue of printer drivers contributed to the GNU license. Not that it was the sole reason. And regarding the issue of Linux an printing it's worth noting the long history of printer driver problems.
Now regarding Stallman and printer drivers note the following wikepedia entry about Stallman's time at MIT which I have heard from the horses mouth many times:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of the first laser printer, the Xerox 9700. Stallman had modified the software on an older printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged a user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users when a printer was jammed. Not being able to add this feature to the Dover printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This one experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be free to modify the software they use.

Also some manufactureres such as Canon refuse to publish the specs for their printers, provide drivers for other systems or put restrictive terms on the information. Hence making it almost impossible to write effective drivers for 'unauthorised' systems.
And there is no technical reason for the above restrictions. In fact it was trouble with obtaining printer information without having to sign an NDA that contributed to the formulation of the GPL.

It was explained earlier in Dr Who.
They are really from the planet Metebellis III
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Spiders

Sega went to rehab. The world is a better place because of it.

What color is the sky on your world?

Just a note.
Smeg is actually an abreviation of smegma. Otherwise known as dick cheese :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma

This is optimistic at best. Remember the power of 3 rule:
(where UOW=unit of work (man/month :-) )
    1 UOW = program for yourself
    3 UOW = give it to someone else
          (you install, you copy, etc)
    9 UOW = give it to local group
          (howto, platform change)
  27 UOW = shareware/open source
          (configure/make/make install)
  81 UOW = product
          (real docs, slick UI, support teams)
243 UOW = business
          (lawyers, CEO, sales, marketing)

you're looking at a lot more work than you're willing to
admit. unless it is a trivial application you need to
understand that writing the program in the first place
is the easiest part of the whole problem. Teams which
don't include the original developer are even harder.

Tim Daly