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 of course vary from person to person, but some common ones are:

• 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?