We have here a commercial venture which (hopefully) makes a profit based
on the freely donated labour of a large number of people on the net, not
just the FAQ maintainers but all the people who supplied information which
the maintainters edited. I strongly support the idea that a portion of
the proceeds of a commercial venture which makes a profit based on the
freely donated labor of a large number of people on the net should come
back to the net. We can argue about the proportion of the proceeds which
are to be allocated to the net and what form this return can take. It
seems to me, however (correct me if I am wrong) that far more person-hours
of labor went into the production of the FAQs than will be put in by these
paper publishers.
I propose that the return to the net should be a rather large share of the
profits (if any) from this venture. The publishers are repackaging other
peoples' work and re-selling it in a different medium, and it is
impossible to thank every contributor to every FAQ. Remembering that the
contributors originally donated their time/effort to the community at
large, it is only fitting that money generated by their work is also
donated to the community at large. In my dream world, the relationship
between the FAQ maintainers and the paper publishers would be like an
employer-employee relationship, in which the net community (picturing it
for a moment like a corporation with no tangible assets but lots of
manpower, of which we are all shareholders) is the employer and the
paper publishers are employees. The owners (net community, which did the
hard work in the first place) are entitled to the net profits, after
paying the publishers' costs and a decent wage.
The idea of supporting rtfm financially seems like a good one. Other
worthwhile net-wide projects?
-- Brian Lucas (rec.travel) <Brian_Lucas@UManitoba.ca>
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