> We need to explore the "work order" or bounty idea further. Maybe a > little out of the box thinking is required. Website automation would > help, but tell me if this is easy or not: > > 1) Discussion is done on this list to create a "work order", usually > an enhancement. > > 2) Someone posts the "work order" on a website built to support this > new business model. > > 3) Developer(s) bid on the work order, with each bid listed > seperately. Now you have one work order with multiple bids attached > to it. > > 4) Users can tentatively commit with credit card to funding any or all > of the bids. The credit cards are not billed until the trip point for > any of the bids are reached. The trip point is when enough tentative > commitments have been submitted. Only the first bid to be tripped > fires the credit card billing. At that point the other bids are dead, > and their tentative commitments are voided. On the bid that tripped, > maybe a partial payment of the funds go to the developer, with balance > of the funds held in escrow until the work is completed. > > Would not a mechanism like this turbo charge the Kicad project? Maybe > within 5 years this could be the best software in the world. Within 1 > year you'd have no reason to use any other software. It is > capitalism, without the middle man: the software company. > > Yes you can find holes in the idea, but it is a starting point and > demands refinement.
Hi Dick, I completely agree with the idea that it would be nice to sponsor the developers to move the project formward. I would myself contribute a small amount to keep the current developers doing their job. I'm only doing small hobby projects but Kicad is a great solution for publishing open-source hardware projects. But if some companies are now using it, I guess they would be able to contrinute much more to the project as that will save them those expensive commercial CAD packages. Googling a bit around, I found that bounties usually lead to community disorders (http://www.openlogic.com/blogs/2007/07/guadec-keynote-would-you-do-it-again-for-free/). Now we need to take into account that kicad has few active developers and that they're very commited to the project. I'm sure they're ways to get what we want: get the project moving. I found 2 links for funding services that may help, I have no experience with them though: http://micropledge.com/ http://www.opensourcexperts.com/ David
