How Many Zaurus Owners

[lardman]

I think--nice a a single purpose might be--that we users lack a coherent view, the developers hjave specialties and likes and dislikes and things as they are are pretty much how they will be for at least a while.

To get people to do stuff which is not of major interest to them, you'll have to pay them for their time - this meansthat they actually work full-time/part-time doing this work. I'm not sure you'll be able to scrape together enough cash to get people to throw in their current jobs and start working part-time + money from the pot.

Possibly a more productive method would be to offer bounties (à la Gnome/Mozilla bounties) for achieving a given task, this has the advantage that different projects would appeal to different people, plus it would achieve the main geek reason for coding (other than personal interest) - kudos (and the money wouldn't be the main reason for doing it - so no-one would need to give up jobs, and the donations wouldn't need to be so large).

Just my opinion of course.


Si

P.S. I'm not sure what happens with Mozilla/Gnome, but I think it might be worth making people register their interest for a given project so that we don't have lots of people all doing the same thing (there aren't many of us, so cooperation rather than competition should be the name of the game IMHO)

[omro]

Possibly a more productive method would be to offer bounties (à la Gnome/Mozilla bounties) for achieving a given task

Isn't it cool how an idea sparks new ideas :-)

I'd not even thought of it as that, I'd just thought central pot, equal cut to each set of developers, thank them for their hard work and offer a bit of encouragement.

I do like the idea of incentivising developers to work on certain things, though that would mean setting up a steering group to decide what those goals might me.

[dz]

If you guys can hold off on the donating for a little bit, I'd imagine the non-profit paperwork should be finished in a little bit.  All your donations could be donated to the OESF and then be tax deductible.  One of our main goals of the OESF is to get donations and feed it back out to the developers.

Mike would know more details about that though.

[ev1l]

I was wondering. How many zaurus users actively view these forums?
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You can check that yourself. Take a look at the forum's load stats from time to time, you should get a pretty good idea.

I was also wondering how many of those would donate money towards Zaurus software development?

I can already donate to whichever project deserves it and is accepting donations.
I prefer to contribute by helping develop software, but if I wanted to donate to anyone accepting gifts, it wouldn't be a problem.

Maybe we should organise a fundraiser, get everyone on the forums to donate 5 pounds to a central pot and from there it could be spent amongst the main software development projects.

Who's going to manage that fund? Why not let the users manage whom them give to themselves?

Or if I had to pay a 5 pound membership fee a year in order to get at ALL the zaurus downloads, i.e. the apps or the OS updates, I'd be willing to pay that because I'd know my money was going to a good place.

Again, who's going to manage that fund? What system would you propose to divide the funds between projects?
If I *had* to pay for software updates or forum access I'd simply contribute elsewhere. I'd support KDEPIMPI on another forum, and work on another wiki.

I'd rather donate centrally to a place that spread my money amongst the worthy causes of the Zaurus world than show favouritism to one project. All projects advance the platform in my view.

Ah, I think that's where we'll agree to disagree.
Case in point: I contribute to KDE Pim/PI because I think the philosophy behind it is sound, I wouldn't want to contribute to any projects where the average user needs to read pages of doc before he can use his PDA to do whatever he wants.
In my particular case, I would have sold my Z ages ago were it not for KDEPIMPI, so I contribute to that. I wouldn't want projects that aren't user-centric to profit from a common fund, but I totally understand it's just one of many opinions.
I'd say let users vote with their money: good software will be supported (if not financially, at least with contributions), bad/unfriendly software won't get financed, and it seems just fine to me that way.

[craigtyson]

This goes with what I was saying once a central fund was established you get lots and I do mean lots of headaches managing and executing the fund...  It can lead to legle action (as iv just come out of a day sitting in a courthouse to try a case involving another bunch of enthusiasts who thought it would be a good idea to create a fund to help out) which end up giving all the money to lawyers.

I would be happy to support a bounty system and continue to encourage system sites to put paypal donation links on their sites to help fund their projects.  But as has been said I dont think its possable to fund a comercialy viable development team just to support the Z.  For myself an ex pascal programer I use the Z more as a techno puzzel box and entertainment system than a comersial tool.  There are lots of times I would love to give them out to the company users I support but without a manufacturors warrantee or support I cann't even think about it.

So please be verry verry carfull before drawing up any agreements where by funds and a comunity of avid enthusiasts is concerned.  It could be the start of WWIII..................

[offroadgeek]

Roy is right... that is one of the reasons why we're creating the OESF as a non-profit.  As an update for all (sorry for the slight side track), the OESF is incorporated in Minnesota as a charitable nonprofit organization. (it was just incorporated in California before I moved  ).  Next step is to complete the paperwork to obtain both federal and state tax exempt status.  The federal process is a bit more complicated (63 pages of instructions!) and required to complete prior to obtaining state exempt status.

Right now, I personally like the bounty concept to promote development of applications, which is why I've stated my (financial) support for the FM radio card driver.  I figure that if anyone feels like donating to the development of this, I could at least match the dollars donated.  If no one donates to the effort, then the community has stated their interest (or lack there of) and I've not lost any money.

I envision the OESF being the facilitator of such bounty style projects, offering both organizational and financial support.  Also, once we're properly tax exempt, I will pursue grants and larger (corporate) donations to fund hardware procurement for development teams, and someday maybe even funding actual development through hiring people (longer term goal)!

So, if anyone wants us to setup a bounty project for a specific development need, just let me know and I would be more than happy to help facilitate it.  

[ScottYelich]

cacko knows how much and how often I donate... and my desire to also have
a bounty.

I pay for quality software/development and to support the community (ie: wikipedia, etc).

I am lucky that I can afford to do this little bit at this time.  For those who can not
donate money, donating time/effort with docs and feedback is also a good thing,
although it won't buy vod^H^H^H food or pay the rent.  :-)

Scott

[craigtyson]

Maybe its time to take a poll of the forum users?  There are some good ideas here and it looks like we're leaning toward bounties at the mo.

[craigtyson]

Just slightly off topic how about a set of OE awwards...  Best this / best that / awward for best support / etc.

[pgas]

Note that now you can donate:

- to cacko : http://my-zaurus.narod.ru/
- to OE/OZ developers: http://openzaurus.org/wordpress/developers/
- to pdaxrom: http://www.pdaxrom.org
- to these forums: http://www.zaurususergroup.org/

[omro]

Is it possible to donate to a US non profit organisation from abroad?

I still prefer the idea of a subscription basis, even if it's only a small amount.

I do like the idea of a bounty, because... no offence to the developers... I'm sure they concentrate on things which are perfect for them and other people with advanced skills, rather than on things which average, everyday people want or can use. It's the average, everyday person that makes a product a success, look at the iPod, so easy, anyone could use it. The zaurus and linux related mobile computing still makes me feel like I need some major additional education! lol But back to my point, a bounty could be used to encourage the development of more average everyday userfriendly and productive software for the platform.