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

[Thomas Vecchione]

Its not so much that you are having problems expressing oyur ideas, but more
that I don't necessarily agree with them;)

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 9:59 PM, Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey at boosthardware.com
> wrote:

> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Mantis and Embedded browser integration
>
> 1: Integrate Mantis into the website so the bounty system is more visible,
> accessible and auto updated.


This I agree with, and is already being worked on in some small part I
believe.  Don't ahve to much information at this point though.

>
> 2: Add an embedded browser to Ardour that can be disabled with a config
> setting if desired.
> 3: Make sure the embedded browser will not attempt to access the internet
> if the system is not connected. Simple check of ifconfig should confirm
> without any overhead.
> 4: Point the embedded browser at http://ardour.org
> 5: Make sure it is displayed at startup by default. Config setting to
> disable.
>

This I disagree with.  It would pull in more dependencies for ardour for
something that is limited in usefulness to be honest.  There is no reason to
have a full browser, the most I might think about might be something that
can parse an XML/RSS feed to be honest, but even that is a bit questionable
to me.


>
> Fundraising and Mantis fund integration
>
> 1: Create a Mantis fund and integrate it with the donations and bounty
> system on the website.
> 2: Run a fundraiser to build up the Mantis fund.
> 3: Funds raised could be matched by upto 1 month of subscriptions with
> total pool of $3000
>

The problem with this is that it ignores the primary problem and goes for a
secondary issue.  If we aren't raising enough money to pay the primary
developer, which is the goal of the raising money, then we need to address
this first, before we take money away form the goal of paying the primary
developer and put it towards a secondary(IMO) goal there.


>
> Allocation of funds
>
> 1: Setup a voting system for the Mantis bugs/features
> 2: Encourage users to vote for the features/bugs they want to be worked on
> next.
> 3: Assign an appropriate cost for the most popular features.
> 4: Allocate a part of the Mantis fund, say upto half of the cost to the 5
> most popular features and let the community fund the difference.
> 5: When targets are met start work on the feature and take the cash out of
> the system.
> 6: When the feature is finished give the cash to the Dev/s who earned it.
> 7: Let people know that a new voting round it in process for x amount of
> Mantis items.
> 8: Return to 2.
>

And while I don't disagree with this necessarily, there are other problems
that need to be addressed with the bounty system regarding payment, etc. as
well, but this is going to veer off to a different topic pretty quick I
think.


> If the core changes for this system do not make the cut for a short period
> of developer time and attention (say 1 month) then there is no way the user
> community can be expected to make more effort to fund Ardour development
> than they currently do.
>
> I get the feeling that people are actually happy with the current system
> and quite possibly don't want to make it more effective because then we
> would have a system that actually meets its goals. This is a scary idea.
> Ardour funding actually meeting Pauls targets. After 12 years of not being
> tenable I can see how it would make some people uncomfortable. Nobody wants
> to see the baby* grow up and become an adult.
>

I sure hope that last paragraph is sarcastic.  It is hard to tell in text.
If it wasn't then what is the point of this entire discussion if not to
suggest new plans of action to be moved on.  (Obviously the latter part of
that still needs to happen).

        Seablade
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