Chris Grams

It seems to me that the open source movement has got this one pretty well figured out... they might have some ideas that could help you figure it out for the computer club too...

For example: you don't have to pay to be part of the Fedora community (www.fedoraproject.org), but it keeps on ticking. At least from where I sit, it looks like their secret is 1) corporate backing/sponsorship from Red Hat and other companies 2) contributors who volunteer hosting resources for mirrors, etc 3) contributors who have convinced their companies to fund some of their project work 4) folks who contribute their own time and resource because they believe in the project

here's the Fedora "contribute" page:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Contribute

Of course not every small club is going to be able to do this on the scale that Fedora has, but it doesn't hurt to ask the question anyway...might help generate some innovative ideas.

I'm sure folks could give us some other good examples of open source projects that sustain themselves through ways other than membership...

Rebecca-- I think this is a great example of a management design flaw. By that I mean a structural flaw in the way the organization is designed that puts good people in bad situations.... and sometimes makes them act badly.

Every corporation has one or two people who are just plain evil, but in the majority of cases I've experienced, good people, who you'd probably have fun hanging out with after work and all that, are forced into bad behavior by the management structure around them.

In fact, you've probably, at some point in your career, had a situation like the one above happen with someone you worked with who was *actually* one of your best friends outside of work. I sure have. And it sucks big time when the design of the management structure forces even best friends into adversarial situations.

Your ladder analogy is a good one. When people are desperate and there is only one ladder, we are asking a lot of good people to resist the tendency to climb.

But Ruth is right on by suggesting the open source community has found a way:

After all, who says there have to be only one ladder to climb?