[Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial headache?

[Patrick Shirkey]

Thomas Vecchione wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 12:55 AM, Patrick Shirkey 
> <pshirkey at boosthardware.com <mailto:pshirkey at boosthardware.com>> wrote:
>
>     We also have the bounty system which is failing miserably. In a
>     recent discussion it was found that the highest anyone has offered
>     for a new feature on Mantis is around $80. Nearly all of the
>     features require significant effort to make them happen.
>
>
> Hmm well I know that was beaten, but not by much.  Speaking of which I 
> still need to make a donation to fulfill a bounty pledge I made that 
> Carl has a patch in Mantis for already(Which means it may be back down 
> to $80 now, I have to check)
>
This illustrates the point exactly. With the current system, How many 
people will know that you fulfilled your pledge once you do it if there 
is no way to easily find out? Right now there will be less than 10 
people who will know when you paid and how much you paid. That doesn't 
exactly build momentum or inspire others to contribute...


>     It's fairly simple to add a window which can show
>     subscription/donation info and Mantis bounties directly in the
>     software. It could just be an embedded html view using an existing
>     browser dispalying the ardour website. It's not much effort to add
>     a news feed so people are kept upto date without having to lift a
>     finger. It's a little more effort to make the window into a
>     central point for community involvement. By ensuring the interface
>     is self updating and relevant it will give users incentive to
>     participate. Most users don't want to and can't be bothered
>     keeping track of the website to find out what is happening. If it
>     was easily accessible to them and the info was relevant then more
>     people would make some time to contribute.
>
>
> Hmm, as I mentioned in the past, I personally am in favor of how it is 
> currently set up.  It COULD be worth it to add in a feed from the 
> website of current donation/goal status to the current nag dialog, not 
> rendered HTML or anything, just connect to a RSS feed or similar and 
> extract the amounts if that is easily possible.
>  
It would be a significant step. But to me it is kind of similar to the 
guitarist who gets to the solo and plays a couple of long notes or the 
singer who will only hum when they are in front of an audience.

We have an opportunity to make a very entertaining and powerful addition 
to Ardour that will directly affect the bottom line. At the moment 
Ardour is like the lion that meowed and the largish community of users 
is forced to take a circuitous route to find out when the meow happened 
and what it means to them if they can even be bothered to get that far.

If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain...


(Ok, that's it, I think I'm out of analogies now ;-)


-- 
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd.