Vincent Hennebert wrote:
Question is, also, how to advertise the thing. Would the fop-user
mailing list be enough to attract donators?
From a quick search, it doesn't seem that the topic was brought up
previously on that list. Can anyone think of another place where we can
reach users? I think [EMAIL PROTECTED] might help, too -
although it's not fop-specific, the DocBook user community is surely
interested in improving their open source toolchain.
Andreas L Demelle wrote:
I do wonder whether the motivation (with or without the bounty) is
enough by itself to make it happen. (...) I'm under the impression
that certain other things need to happen first before a decent
auto-layout implementation becomes a feasible project...
Could you elaborate on that a bit? Without knowing any implementation
details, I think that all related work would be (implicitly or
explicitly) included in the funded task and as such done by the developer.
Patrick Paul wrote:
I am still motivated in participating in this feature. As you said
there are things that need to happen, or at least in my case things
that need to be understood before being able to do a decent
auto-layout implementation.
Patrick, how much time do you think you would need? Could you, like
Vincent, use your work hours for this if paid - if so, what should the
bounty be?
Vincent, you also indicated interest. What's the required time/bounty
for you?
Is anyone else willing, able and available to do this? If so, include
estimates as above.
I'm pretty convinced that handling this via fundable.org is the way to
go. The service has been around since 2005 and looks trustworthy. They
accept payments via PayPal, but only actually charge when the pre-set
funding goal of a "group action" is met.
What we need to decide on is
a) What is the funding goal (fixed dollar amount)? If it's not met, no
money is collected, so polls are really needed to get an idea of the
support base. (Note: fundable.org charges 7% of the goal on success, but
I think that's fair enough for their service)
b) What will be the group action's deadline? I propose two months from
the day the group action starts. That increases the chance to be
noticed; if the goal is met before, the group action immediately ends
anyway.
c) Who will be "group leader" of this over at fundable? This person gets
the money, so it should be someone people trust, i.e. has a background
with the project etc. (e.g. not me ;-) Ideally, it would be the
developer, but it could be someone else who passes on the money. (btw:
the latter would also allow several developers - working parallel or in
sequence - among which the group leader distributes the money in some
fair way.)
So, what do you all think on the above, especially a-c?
Regards,
Jens
