Hi Tones, Thanks for raising this major question. As most non-developers, despite being an active user, I am mostly a passive bystander as far as the community is concerned. I am of course highly aware of how much I rely on developers such as yourself for my favourite tools and feel strongly about finding ways to contribute towards making sure TiddlyWiki can continue to thrive.
I've been thinking about this on and off since Soren released his incredible Grok Tiddlywiki in particular, as Soren has recently released two projects that really resonate with me and has considerably empowered me in my tinkering. I finalized a one-off donation this morning after ticking off another chapter of Grok TW, but the issue is of course that supporting only one developer/documenter, especially as a one-off, feels like an easy cop out, and ideally this would have to be balanced out by something that makes sure that the key developers are also properly taken into account and contributes to some sort of long-term stability and predictability for developers. Now, who are the key developers? Users like me cannot possibly be expected to be discerning in that matter when deciding how and where to direct their donation. Your top of mind seems to be Jeremy, Mario and Eric, as well as yourself to some extent I imagine. Let me tell me about mine. I'd mention Jeremy, Dave Gifford and Mohammed, but simply because those are names that stuck to my mind while lurking around the forum for my own intents and purposes. I would have recognized your icon, though I'd probably have associated it to Dave. There's also a guy with a icon of a wolf that I find pretty neat and some interesting mannerisms, and another one with a flat comics face that seems to be a real regular but I couldn't remember his name without checking. I never really went on the Github page except to star the project. In reality, I have no precise idea who's contributing most and I have a feeling many potential donors wouldn't either. What I have is an uninformed, biased vision of someone who couldn't possibly intelligently support an individual developer other than based on external wow factor alone or random mental shortcuts. There are probably many more developers out there, with very different personal situations. Some would benefit greatly from more money at a personal level, while others have high paying jobs and would view this as beer or coffee money. Some, including yourself would actually be able to commit more time to Tiddlywiki or avoid dropping out by having more funds go their way, and these are not necessarily the same as the former group, and perhaps even developers that are completely out of the picture at present. Beyond this counterfactual, there's also the question of the "bang for the buck": a dollar in Iran has more purchasing power that in the US... So many questions that personally have led me to a situation of analysis paralysis regarding Tiddlywiki and yet, here I am, also a long-term monthly donator to Linux Mint. Mint provided me with an easy "set and forget" mechanism to support the community, presenting me with a nice, trustworthy black box to address my money to. It's easy to view this support through the SaaS lens too. I currently pay $5 a month, an amount I decided based both on my modest means and on what Microsoft probably managed to squeeze out of me on average when I was a Windows user. I also pay for my Internet access (a share of €18/2=€9 per month), my phone bill (€5*2=€10 for my two lines), an Internet server and domain names, and pay around €120 per year for other software (mostly as donations these days). Supporting my PIM shouldn't be any different, and I indeed used to pay for Evernote a few years ago for a much inferior product with no authentic sense of purpose. My absolute ideal solution as a user would be to have the same kind of support mechanism for TiddlyWiki, no accountability needed, just knowing the core developers have found some sort of agreement and viable form of governance would be enough as far as I'm concerned and I'd pay $10/month in my current situation, plus $50–100 per year on an ad hoc basis. On top of that, I'd love to have clear opportunities for one-off donations, either ex-post or for earlier releases. A nice feature would be to have make this expense-friendly because many of us can file reasonable outside expenses for such things, either as independents or employees. Your prize pool idea is interesting, but I guess we wouldn't want, say, three developers to waste their time carrying out the same kind of work in triple to claim a given prize given how few you are. From a individual standpoint, I think the most promising proposal would therefore be "a list of tools you can choose to sponsor for earlier release through donations which also act as an upvote" as I find the core extremely polished for my own needs and I'd of course love to cast a vote in favour of new and shiny things that I could get to use. Your last idea, offering a private method to commission work is also of course something to consider of course. It seems there's no "Tiddlywiki developer for hire" page on tiddlywiki.com, which seems like a missed opportunity. Hope this helps. Best, R² Le jeudi 20 mai 2021 à 02:22:43 UTC+2, TW Tones a écrit : > Folks, > > A lot of contributors here are deserving of reward for their efforts. As a > result I do make one off or continuing patreon donations to a few in our > community. > > The discussion of money can be difficult but I would like to hear your > considered thoughts. > > In my own circumstances I am currently unemployed, If I take a full time > job, I will have far less time for TiddlyWiki, although I hope to use it in > my job. > > As you may be aware I already try and contribute a lot to the community > and as a result of developing super user or designer skills I have > designed many tools and features for tiddlywiki. Basically I have a library > of many dozens of tools, however I have not being able to justify the time > to polish and publish them. Many of my tools are designed to fill gaps that > arise, as I develop larger tiddlywiki solutions, mostly for my self. > > What I would like your feedback on both as users and developers is the > possibility of some of us (especially myself) being able to attract some > sponsorship to get the job done. Here are my thoughts; > > - Provide a patreon or similar channel for regular donations to > sponsor my time producing such open source solutions. > - Provide a requests channel, so people can submit a request for a > solution. > - Provide a list of tools you can choose to sponsor for earlier > release through donations which also act as an upvote. > - Finally offer a private method to commission work. > > Given my belief in Open source I would continue to contribute much for > free, especially contributions to the forums. Any work funded by > sponsorship or donations would be made freely available to the community. > Only specific and private commissions may not, although components may be. > > *Some possible issues* > One issue for me is even if people value such a service to request or > bring forward particular solutions, ultimately I will still need to depend > on the generosity of others when I need help in the forums. I do still have > a few areas of weakness. Whilst I can see circumstances when donations may > permit me to commission others I don't expect this would be so common, > unless my earnings are sufficient to cover this. Perhaps I can grant > contributors credit in my own "shop" for thanks. > > Equity for people such as Jeremy and other developers needs to be > addressed. Can we find a way to encourage more contributions to those such > as Jeremy, Mario and Eric without the community becoming an "only if funded > model". Of course if people are in a position to give their time freely we > want to encourage this to continue. > > If I am going to do this I need to start in a hurry, so I do not want to > add anything unnecessary to the "critical path" but perhaps we could have a > shared "shop". > > Yours with trepidation and sincerity. > Tones > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/ce830c1c-db5c-488d-91e2-d1d1c7ccf864n%40googlegroups.com.
