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attitude
by chris on Sunday 28/Mar/2004, @17:11
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| I think this is not a good way to go, i once talked to a developer at a exhibition from Xfree86 about a cool feature and he say they said " yeah nice but i only implement it if you pay me ". This attitude really sucks and brought Xfree86 down. |
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Re: attitude
by Eric Laffoon on Sunday 28/Mar/2004, @19:21
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Well that's not my attitude, Andras' attitude, Michal's attitude or Özkan's attitude. Could it be that you either didn't read it, jumped to conclusions or just don't really know much about us? Let's look at the facts...
1) I started sponsoring development with Dmitry and Alex in 2000. They needed to move our of the hostel they were living in and into a house with a phone line for an internet connection. They were almost out of college and it's hard to contribute when you have to put it on a floppy and borrow a friends connection.
2) I sponsored Andras mid 2002 after he had gotten Quanta in order in December 2001 for a 2.0 release without asking for money. Because he was looking for work and stressing it was hard for him to work on it prior to being sponsored. had he taken a job the employer policy where he lives is to work you as many hours as they want for the same money. It would have been quite likely that he would not have had much time or energy to code Quanta.
3) I spent thousands of dollars of my own money before I thought that maybe I should ask for help.
4) Michal has another open source project he's working on and just finished his PhD so he hasn't had much time for Quanta.
5) Özkan did say he'd work on it no matter what and told me that since he broke up with his girlfriend a few days ago he would have more time. I think I can understand that. Considering he said a few hundred dollars a month would put him in good shape I don't think I can call him greedy.
Each of the people developing under sponsorhip or hoping to be sponsored with our project loves what they're doing. Özkan produced an alpha of his program already, Andras released Kallery and Michal released Knowit.
* Nobody here is saying they won't work on this unless paid, unless it is just not feasible for them to do so.
* Everyone we sponsor is able to put in substantially more time and as I've often explained this makes them several times more effective with that time because they are more familiar with all aspects of it.
* Everyone here has produced code in advance of asking for sponsorship help.
* It costs money to live and earning it can get in the way of having time and energy for other things.
What this has done for Quanta is gotten us noticed, like our recent LinuxQuestions.org user choice award. It also got us one of the lowest counts for open bugs of KDE applications as well as a turn around time for user support that is often in the minutes. One contributor made a feature request that was filled in 3 hours in CVS!
What actually has been the downfall of XFree86 is a number of unrelated but different issues including their license and looking for recognition. We don't in any way resemble XFree86 at all!
Maybe what really sucks is the idea of financially supporting a project that does a good job? Note that I NEVER try to make people feel guilty as a motivation to contribute nor do I ever beg. I detest both and I respect our users too much. I don't even like asking for money, but at some times I think it is too important not to.
I'm not personally offended by what you said, but I think I proved that you don't have a solid perspective here. Everyone here knows who I am. If I've messed up go ahead and point it out, but if you're going to do so you had better have your facts straight. People are contributing money to our project and it's EXTREMELY important to me that I do the right thing by them. As far as attitude goes, it is difficult to ascertain sometimes without some study. I think it's reasoable to assume, based on what we've done, that ours is okay. How's yours? ;-)
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Re: attitude
by Andras Mantia on Sunday 28/Mar/2004, @21:18
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I never said (nor did anyone else in Quanta) that I'll do some features if you pay me. There were other cases, like I offered to do something after I got a donation or somebody asked me if I can implement a feature and he is even want to pay for it, but that is different. In general the case is one of the following:
- you are working on your free time, so the project goals in the direction you imagined. If someone's request does not fit in this vision or is low priority for you, that person can try to get that feature for money. I don't see any problem with this.
- you are working full/part time and get payed for the work, so your main employer may/can decide which way to go. The rest is the same, except that the feature for money must be discussed with the main employer, especially if it takes much time to implement.
In case you are not the only developer of the project (or that area of the project), the request must be discussed also with the others, unless you want to create a forked version.
All in all, I don't see problem with offers like "feature for money" until it doesn't mean that I won't code anymore or I won't implement that feature (even if I agree that would be good to have) until you pay me. ;-) But that's not the case inside the KDE project.
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Re: attitude
by André Somers on Monday 29/Mar/2004, @00:11
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I have to disagree. In my view, it's a way for people who can't contribute to development otherwise to support the project. If I want a certain feature, I could probably implement it myself. That means I'd have to invest time. Not everybody I know of can do that. If they want something implemented, all they can do ask nicely (AKA: file a feature request) and wait untill it is done. Now, they are also offered the opportunity to speed things up a little for that feature they really want, and sponsor a developer that is thus able to invest more time in KDE development at the same time. The whole KDE community will profit from this, so he made a real contribution. To me, that sounds like a Good Thing (TM).
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Re: attitude
by oliv on Wednesday 31/Mar/2004, @07:27
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What you can do is patent this feature: Then when the guy realises it is a nice feature, you can go to him and say: "yeah nice but you can only implement it if you pay me" ;) (of course I am joking ...)
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