Re: KickStarter for Debian packages - crowdfunding/donations for development
On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 11:50 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> A deeper discussion of the social concerns and solutions with
> integrating donations and fundraising into Debian packages can be found
> here:
>
> http://lists.debian.org/deity/2013/06/msg00054.html
I thought this was pretty shallow, but anyway:
My personal opinion is that while many projects have means of accepting
donations most of the time its not as easy to discover or to use.
"Donating" to projects which are not free-to-use is a lot easier as the same
interface over which you discover this incredible masterpiece of a project
is also the place where you find how to channel money to it – simply because
you have to pay for it before you use it.
And I am not talking about money exclusively here: Some projects have
licenses encouraging buying the developer a beer if you see her/him,
to send a postcard, to donate to favorite entity, … all of which isn't
that accessible if you aren't highly determined to find it.
As a distribution we work hard on making the best software available via
an easy interface, we collect screenshots, reviews and votes for them (in
various way with various states of completion in various downstreams) so
I believe its in some sense our responsibility to also collect the
information of how to show appreciation for the hard work of everyone
involved in this project.
That Debian is able to collect and deliver appreciations to developers via
a simple interface was proven in 2010 with thanks.debian.net (the original
is gone) which was like the best idea since sliced bread. :)
[I know that others didn't like the "spam" – so much for uncontroversial]
So I don't believe Debian should be the entity actually collecting (at least)
the more physical/dangerous forms of appreciation, this is really something
the projects itself have to work out, but we are good at collection metadata
and I think many would appreciate being able to appreciate more easily.
This especially means though, that it must be very very very clear who is
the receiver of the appreciation. I would personally be surprised if the
maintainer of package XYZ is getting a share via "apt-donate xyz '5 coins'"
(I use this interface now just for brevity).
She/he is doing a lot of work for sure, but I appreciate the software, not
that it is packaged with this. That I can get this software easily while
using Debian is something the whole project is responsible for, not just
the person who happens to maintain this specific package, so appreciation
for the package itself should go to the project as a whole.
Best regards
David Kalnischkies
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