Should More Employers Subsidize Open Source Development?

An interesting debate is going on about subsidized Open Source development. A lot of Open Source development happens on a free-time basis, but an increasing share is being paid for by both governments as companies. OStatic has a nice article showing the involvement of companies in the Linux kernel development. Matt Assay also discusses whether governments could effectively subsidize Open Source development. And InfoWorld tells us something we knew already: that France, through policies and high-profile projects, for years has been advocating for all Open Source all the time, in government and education.

Although in our business we can't afford to go for the Google trick (having all employees spending 20% of their time on own projects, resulting mostly in Open Source Software), we do try our best to commit back to the community. The best example of this is with our joint-venture MyOwnDB, built on top of our Open Source Dedomenon. But contributions can take many small forms as well. We frequently file bug reports, translate packages and many of our employees are active on Open Source project's mailing lists and IRC channels. Zeropoint.IT firmly believes this is for the greater benefit of itself ánd of the individual developer working with us.