Comment by microtonal

Some Debian developers tried to get funding to finish the Etch release, but it was met with a lot of hostility:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg00260.htm...

That doesn't mean that it cannot be done. E.g. the FreeBSD Foundation pays developers for specific projects that are important to the future of FreeBSD:

https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/projects/