Those who listen to National Public Radio (NPR) probably hate pledge drive season. That is probably because they fall into one of two camps. The first, and biggest, are those who enjoy some of the programs broadcasted, but cannot understand why they are being pestered to donate and just want the asking for funds to stop. The second group, and more profound of the two, "get it" and are eager to help fund NPR. They also know that if a high percentage of folks who listen in would donate on the first day of the drive then the whole thing would be over on day one and the never-ending begging could stop.
Why am I rambling about NPR anyway? Over that last few years I've been working for a company that is 100% devoted to open source software (OSS) – specifically "open community" software such as shepherded by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) – as well as a "user" of multiple OSS projects for years before that and I can easily see the parallels of these two models.
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