Hi all, I am investigating the possibilities for funding Free Software such as Abiword. I am thinking of setting up a system where many people can contribute small amounts of money to support their favorite Free Software project. My hope is that this will allow some development work to be actually funded. This could be done by linking up with SourceForge, GNU or some other trusted body.
I have outlined a draft (very draft) for the proposal here: http://www.tpp.org/freesupport/freesupport.html While there are a bunch of technical and procedural details to be worked out, I am interested in your comments as developers of Abiword. Would you be interested in having a popup window as part of Abiword (maybe in a splash screen) encouraging people to support the work financially and giving them a quick and easy way to do it. If that is too obtrusive, then maybe just another link under Help. Or a link on the web page. How would the money be split among the developers? Would you appoint a trusted receiver of the money? How would you go about choosing that person? My next question would be to the users of Abiword, which would ask if they would be willing to contribute (and how much - $1, $5, $10?). Would this be a monthly contribution? The key thing to grasp is this is about about giving, not paying for. This is not intended to turn Free Software into ShareWare - there is nothing demanded or obligatory about this gift. I am interested in your comments. Damian -- Damian Ivereigh CEPS Team Lead http://wwwin-print.cisco.com Desk: +61 2 8446 6344 Mob: +61 418 217 582
