[em-bee]

good point on the "reluctant" FOSS developers. i see this a lot. big companies have teams that work on FOSS projects, but most of the people in those teams don't understand what the fuss is about. they come to FOSS events to promote their products and treat them no different than their proprietary ones.

the thing is, their leaders may actually understand FOSS and believe in it because they can see the benefits, but they don't understand that for the developers below them it is just another job.

i have argued that exact point in a company where i worked, telling the leaders that if they want to get the developers to make actual voluntary contributions and participate in the FOSS community the leaders need to set an example and actively motivate the developers to do so.

just assigning someone to work on a FOSS project is not enough to help that person to join the FOSS community. there are exceptions of course, where someone interacting with the community realizes that there is more to it and becomes drawn into it, but that's not the norm.