Interviewing Guide

What to expect when being interviewed for the "Free Culture in an Expensive World" project

If you agree to be interviewed, we'll pick a time for the interview, which will be conducted synchronously and which will be at least a half hour long. Interviews will be conducted through a text-based medium such as google docs or etherpad, which will allow you to edit and retract your responses as needed. After a waiting period of at least 48 hours, during which you may also edit your portion of the interview text, the interview will be added to the public gitbook/github repository.

(The opportunity for you to edit your words is purposefully built into this process. Money can be a fraught topic and interviewees have the right to determine what of their experiences and opinions end up being shared. That said, I encourage you to minimize the amount of editing you do, so that the interview transcript remains understandable.)

Questions will vary from person to person, but starting points may include:

• How did you decide on the financial/resource model for your project? How has that financial model influenced your decisions about developing/growing the project?
• Have you ever been paid to work on a FOSS project? How did the experience differ from volunteering?
• Have you ever volunteered on a project with someone who was being paid to work on it, or vice versa? How did that affect your work and the community dynamic?
• What, if any, areas of projects you've worked on have suffered from lack of (paid or volunteer) resources?
• What FOSS projects do you most depend on in your work and life?
• Have you ever donated to a FOSS project, or bought a FOSS product or service?