Marc Hohl <[email protected]> writes: > Am 25.01.2012 02:06, schrieb Tim McNamara: >> As a user, I would tend to prefer to just kick money into a general > fund and let someone figure out how it gets utilized for exactly the > reason that was mentioned: I might want feature X, but groundwork U V > and W- about which I know nothing- would have to precede the addition > of feature X. Bounties could end up complicating the logical > development of Lilypond if they end up causing piecemeal development. > +1 > > I think that the bounty model for special features won't work > (yet). The bounites drop in from time to > time, and it is not clearly visible whether the offer is still valid. > The implementation of tablature bends had a bounty of about 200$ or > even more, but is still is not done. > > I don't know about legal and organizational issues, but what about a > optional lilypond usage fee?
"fee" has a bad ring to it. We are talking about software that is free to use and redistribute, and this is _definitely_ something that we want to stay. It is more like a social contract. Do your part in keeping the things you profit from sustainable. > I am willing to pay about 50$ per year for using lilypond and > supporting the development team. One problem is attaching a meaning to "supporting the development team". What uses are there for money? For me, it is eat, drink, pay rent and social security. That does not sound very LilyPond specific. It becomes LilyPond specific because I currently choose to spend my time on LilyPond. But I am having problems saying "make a LilyPond fund, and I take most of it" when I am not really in an official position in relation with the project. And I have serious doubts that my personality traits would make it a good idea for LilyPond to put me in an official position in relation with the project. It might not improve the developer and user base. Other uses for supporting LilyPond as a project with money is sponsoring conference talkers with conference fees, accommodation, travel. As last active maintainer from AUCTeX, I know that one can easily spend several hundreds of Euros just to reach out to those people who actually profit from you. That's not really a good incentive for all the work in relation with it, so cushioning this makes sense. > And I think there are some more users out therewho would join ... One thing that is clear is that if there are LilyPond specific funds, there should be a procedure for _applying_ for them because if we pay everyone's contribution what it is worth without asking, there will not be left much left to go around for a long while since the LilyPond user base is not yet all that large. If you look at a project like Ardour, it manages to pay the project leader with contributions. That's encouraging. But it _is_ a large project, and it is very much one person who lives fulltime for it, and he is in a quite special situation, and the project leader. Not just in technical matters, but overall. The German TeX user group Dante has a secretary on its payroll and supports for a number of self-driven developments (meaning that people _want_ to do them and apply for funding), but not for fulltime developers. They did that once, and the return of investment was really awful, and not because of any bad intentions of anybody involved. The lesson they took from that is to fund only specific developments already in experienced hands. So it is not really all that easy to make a plan for a reliable long-time money sink that is going to produce good value for LilyPond. I was approached yesterday from somebody willing to make a private donation (I have no idea about the sum). I have no qualms about taking that: it feels more like a recompensation for things I already did so if I were to drop dead tomorrow, I would not have a bad conscience about it. And if more people did that, it would definitely help me continue with my work on LilyPond, and I don't expect it to match my costs of living while developing anytime soon. But calling that a general LilyPond fund would be incorrect: I work on specific stuff at a time and not on everything, others contribute a lot as well, and if somebody called and said "I am going to put €20000 in your fund", I would not be in the position to guarantee that €20000 of development would come from it before I became unproductive. So while I certainly can say that at the current point of time you could do worse for LilyPond than sending me in person regular installments of money without much of a special earmarking, I can't vouch that this will stay so. Of course, another good way is to send earmarked money for which you expect specific tasks to be done in a reasonable amount of time. -- David Kastrup _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
