Quanta Team Adds Developer, Seeks Support for New App

The Quanta team has been growing in volunteer developers, but the amount of work to make a world class killer application is daunting. Community support has enabled me to take the next step and sponsor another developer! As it happens we also have the opportunity to bring some killer features to our web development suite, but this will require some help from the community to help some additional developers. So while I want to bring some good news to the community I also need to ask for a vote of support too.

Fortunately community support has been good. My thanks to our supporters! I have gone from the sole sponsor of Andras to where I only have to pay a little bit of his monthly income. Andras's full time effort has paid huge dividends to Quanta development as any user who has interacted with us will attest. I'm very excited to announce Michal Rudolf, the author of Knowit, will be joining our team! I hope the community will join me in welcoming him as well as helping me to move him from part time to full time in the coming months. As the attached story points out Özkan Pakdil, the author of Flash 4 Linux, got back to me late. I believe what he has started can be made into a tool for both Flash and SVG and that if it's done right it could be very useful for rounding out the package of an application set that can attract web designers from Windows to KDE. It would add new capabilities for those of us developing web sites on KDE. We want to get community input and do it right, but we also need a vote of financial support to enable these developers to proceed. Have a read and consider becoming a sponsor or making a donation. If you do web development this could affect you.

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Comments

by Andras Mantia (not verified)

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.

by André Somers (not verified)

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).

by oliv (not verified)

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 ...)

by Boris Kurktchiev (not verified)

What about them. I mean their Quanta Gold doesn't really see much activity from what I can see. Why not talk with them about sponsoring? They sponsor a developer(full or part time) who will work on Quanta and I guess implement feutures that theKompany wants but Quanta doesn't... or something of that sort. Bah anyway it was just a thought that poped in my head while reading the posts.

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

First of all let me set the record straight. They do not sponsor, nor have they ever sponsored anyone to work on Quanta Plus. If they do I'm unaware of it. The two original developers I worked with decided to team up with them and produce a commercial application out of Quanta. I chose not to participate. I did not think it was a good idea. If anything my feelings about Quanta remaing free have only gotten stronger with time. Without getting into a discussion I don't want to get into I will just say that I don't think it is in their interest to to sponsor an application that effectively competes in the marketplace with one they are selling. That doesn't make any sense at all.

The only reason they have a similar name is that one of the developers rejected the idea of a different name and certainly it would be easy to mistakenly think it was an upgrade from the GPL version. Our team debated and rejected renaming the original. There is absolutely no linkage between the two programs since the split. The split came around the time I lost my mother and for me involved a lot of what I considered to be less than pleasant communications.

Right now, today, as a small business person and with the help of the community I am sponsoring two developers and making some progress on adding more. As open source projects go we have good community financial support because of our strong stance on free software and our excellent track record producing results. As it happens I have a lot more faith in people like myself supporting a cause or making an investment in a piece of software they like than in companies where there may be conflicting interests. The only software related contributions we get are from Ian Fleeton for Linux CDs he distributes. Mandrake registered me to receive contributions but fortunately I didn't hold my breath.

I acknowledge that theKompany has brought some good applications to KDE under the GPL and other licenses but our interests are not the same. It's unlikely we would ever collaborate.