Central question: Has there been any push behind making developer compensation more central to the drupal community, and not an afterthought incorporated on an individual basis (usually with ad-hoc solutions or embedded "Donate" buttons, if at all)?
Forum topic: Selling Drupal Mods? Can I?
I was reading through the above thread, and GPL licenses came up in regards to what they allow, and what they don't, and how Joomla is/was friendlier to developers by not being as "hardcore" GPL. Basically, people were saying that it was more in the Joomla culture to charge for modules, and so it was easier to be a Joomla developer. Eventually, people were talking about how it's difficult to honour the license (and true open-source spirit) and still make a living doing development.
I've dropped in on a few local Drupal Developer meetups in Toronto, and as great as the community is, there does seem to be a quasi-cynical undercurrent that says "Drupal is GREAT! Buuuuut... don't count on being able to live off of it."