On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 02:24:45 UTC, Shammah Chancellor
wrote:
On 2014-10-05 03:33:36 +0000, Walter Bright said:
We're not really limited by lack of funds, but more by lack of
focussed effort. If anyone wants to contribute funds, probably
the best use would be to add bug bounties for bugzilla issues
that they find to be neglected. The bounties don't really
compensate at professional rates, but they do work as a nice
"thanks" to those who donate their valuable time.
I've placed a couple of anonymous bounties, but I personally
think it's a bad way to get directed focused effort. A
democracy of people trying to get what they individually want
done through small donations?
Yes, that is the way democracy works, what is the problem? The
only benefit from a foundation is that they can make decisions
for the community that individual donors may not have the
information to make, including a co-BFDL like Andrei with his
specific expertise. Well, if you want to follow Andrei, just add
on to each of his bountysource bounties, and if you want to
follow the community, just randomly add to existing D
bountysource bounties or to all of them. It would be nice if the
wiki had links to the D bountysource projects though:
https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/383571-d-programming-language
https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/283332-ldc
https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/455080-gdc
I notice that the top issue is at $1k now, not bad.
There are many languages which have grown more quickly than D
(despite being less interesting) because they have a foundation
where people can donate, or some company, which provides for
the core developers. I'm not saying that having a non-profit
will magically generate money, but there are a few companies
who use D out there who just might be willing to donate
non-trivial sums of money to further development if there was a
non-profit to see that the money was put to good use.
Just to name a few:
Python: https://www.python.org/psf-landing/
Node.JS: http://www.joyent.com/
Perl: http://www.perlfoundation.org
Linux Core Developers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation
Ruby Core Developers: https://www.heroku.com (A subsidiary of
Salesforce)
I agree with you that a company would help, though I don't see
much gain from a non-profit, especially if it's as much work to
set up as Andrei says. If you want your money "put to good use,"
I don't see how your bounties on bountysource would be abused.
Those bounties or individually contacting Andrei or Iain about
funding the project expenses they've detailed strikes me as a far
more direct way to contribute to the community than throwing
money at a foundation and forgetting about it. Yes, you won't
get to deduct tax from your contribution, but that's the least of
our concerns.
