Hi Jens, Jens Bannmann a écrit : > 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.
Yes, probably. Given the mostly professional audience there they should be ok with such an action; all the more if a simple user makes the proposal and not a FOP developer. > 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. Well I would be curious too ;-) Right now I can't think of anything that would "prevent" or impede the development of this feature? Although there are probably some (many) other missing preliminary things. <snip/> > Vincent, you also indicated interest. What's the required time/bounty > for you? Frankly, I can't tell it right now. I would first have to spend some time studying this part of the code. I'll try and find some time to do that ASAP. > 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. Well, this seems ok. > 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) Ideally it would cover the whole needed time, to guarantee that the feature will be available on time. However, if only a few days of development are missing that would still make it I guess. The rest could be done in the free time. That should be at the discretion of the chosen developer of course ;-) > 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. Well, if companies want to participate they would probably need some time to prepare a budget for that. That said, I don't think more than 3 months is reasonable, otherwise the interest will vanish. > 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.) I'd say someone from the project who is not the developer himself. Regards, Vincent
