Much of Jon's work has been funded, Neophytos. Just because you're not aware of this doesn't mean it's not true.
If this becomes a pissing contest over the comparative virtues of those who have gotten paid for some of their work versus those who haven't, I'm out of here. I'm serious. Life is too short to put up with bullshit of this sort.
As I said earlier I left my last non-profit board position when the organization decided to judge merit based on political criteria rather than one's contribution to the organization.
I've given up nearly all of my volunteer efforts in conservation in order to have time to volunteer for the OpenACS project over the last three or so years. I could easily give up volunteering for the OpenACS project and go back to volunteering as a conservation biologist for goals which are arguably more important than the writing of a piece of software.
As far as unpaid contributions to the community, I think I can safely state that no current active member of the community has come even close to putting in the amount of unpaid time that Dan Wickstrom, Roberto Mello and myself have put in (I don't include Ben only because he's chosen to drop out of the community).
So if anyone has the right to claim that unpaid contributions are somehow more virtuous than contributions that are funded, I'd say it's the three of us.
And I, at least, think that any such claim is absolute bullshit. Virtue is in the work, not in whether the work is funded or not.
