What/How/Who is funding PPP optimization efforts?

[tckosvic]

> Are they volunteers?  I think not. Are they professional programmers? I think so.

Why do you think those are exclusive? Professional developers doing volunteer work is actually the most common form of FOSS contribution. And it's not entirely selfless either : it acts as your résumé. I've been a professional developer for 15 years, publishing and contributing to many FOSS projects, and I can tell you one thing : I never got a job application rejected. I never either bothered writing an actual résumé, my github profile and names of previous companies was enough. And this is without having done any major or highly visible FOSS project, but just niche libraries and toolings.

There is also the opensource way, where commercial companies fund opensource projects (by giving money or assigning teams to them) either to raise their streetcred among the industry (with the hope of "attracting top talents", as they say) or because it matches some of their goals. A big corp having teams building opensource software is nowadays incredibly common.

Bottom line : FOSS is a big dating system for employers/employees

thanks for your insights.  I thought the magnitude of the efforts would be too extensive for a professional to be able to take time away from "paid" tasks to do this on a volunteer basis.  I also thought the efforts would be too complex for a volunteer amateur level programmer.

I've been hacking at programming to support my engineering efforts since the 60s.  Never encountered a volunteer situation.
thanks,    tom kosvic