Just finished editing a dot story on Choqok (will go live sometime next week). Some of you might have noticed the initiative by its main developer Mehrdad Momeny to speed up development by soliciting monetary input. This will allow him to spend more time on making Choqok rock, but also give users a tangible way of influencing development priorities. This can increase commitment from the users, developers and the community - while bringing real benefits (in terms of code).
The KOffice developers recently did a similar thing, calling upon individual sponsors to help make Krita better. Instead of taking a summer job, Lukáš Tvrdý spend time writing a series of improvements. As you can read on the Krita website it was a great success.
It is good to see initiatives like these. With our growing ambitions and plans come growing requirements for resources. Traditionally, the KDE community has relied heavily on volunteer efforts, and this won't change. However, it is important that developers look for ways to be able to spend more time on doing what they want. Some find employment or start up companies, others look to those who want to contribute in other ways than with their own time. I believe diversifying our resources means a more sustainable community, which ultimately benefits our plans for world domination ;-)
Next time I'll blog more about Being Free, continuing from here. I'll also try to touch on the recent discussions about paid vs unpaid contributors where Zonker participated in.
Hey Jos, I just checked out http://www.kde.org/community/donations/previousdonations.php and then I read your blog post.
ReplyDeleteThe donation page is clearly too well hidden. I think every KDE.org page should have a little unintrusive donate button. Maybe decide on projects that need to tackled (porting, unsexy work, whatever) and then have a pledge like for Krita. People will give money when they get something in return (better performance, a feature, docs whatever.) Have something different every month. You could pay students that are rejected from GSoc with that money. Fedora did something like that this year.
If KDE is getting less than a few Ks a months in donaton then the marketing team needs to do a better job (I will miss your comments on OSnews and LWN, though :P
Next year there better be a KSoc, or else.
Keep up the good work.
I've spent over the years a grand total of $200 in proprietary software. What could have been done with those $200 pumping bugfixes in Free software? I think a lot more.
ReplyDeleteI'll choose carefully next time when I invest in software.
@Tom we currently get donations, but indeed it's not promoted heavily. However, we are working on that together with KDE eV Board, and within a few weeks we'll be announcing The Solution ;-)
ReplyDelete@Alejandro: Indeed, you could've made a difference. Now $200 is not much in itself but you're not the only one thinking this way ;-)
Ive used it a few times but the name.....geez Luis!!
ReplyDeleteI know it means something beautiful like sparrow or some flower in the native language but if its not the pre-teens aroudn the house, then its every person using my computer asking me what "Choke Co*k" does.
Im not an anglo freak, I like the fact that Gnu-Linux comes from people from all around the world and yes, there will be cases always like our asian friend whose very popular family name means penis in russian, its bound to happen but you cant tell me that no one told the author about what his apps sounds like.
Like I said, cool apps for those who use Twitter-Identi.ca and Ive installed it for a few people who are newbs and all say "Love the program, adore the cute and visible green icon but can I not have the name appear in the title bar on top!"
hehe @ last Anonymous, funny, as non-native I hadn't noticed the weird name either... I will point it out to Mehrdad....
ReplyDelete