Debian Project Leader and Dunc-Tank mastermind Anthony Towns :
[...]
There was a definite effect [of funding] on it [etch], and there were some other indirect effects as well, such as the Dunc-Bank project, in which a group of people, mostly from France, didn't like the idea of paying people at all and set up a project that would work with Debian's guidelines and try and improve Debian, but in such a way that Dunc-Tank would fail and wouldn't release on time.
They decided to do some really thorough testing of the release and find more bugs that would then have to be fixed, because if you don't find bugs in advance you can't fix them, and so you might release on time, but with bugs.
So they found the bugs in advance, and said, 'oh, we know about these bugs, and etch can't be released till they're fixed'. This forces us to release a better product, but later, which is what the Debian community tends to focus on anyway.
[...]
even people who did feel that money was corrupted ended up forming the Dunc Bank project. And even in trying to oppose it, it really helped the project release a much better product.
When you can have people who are working in direct opposition to each other end up essentially working together to produce something better, that seems really amazing