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

[1]

For me I can't donate because I don't have a job and no way to donate  
over the Internet(no bank acount).  I use Ardour for music production/ 
mixing, soundtrack mixing, and sound design.

All of which I do in my spare time, which I don't have a lot of. I'm  
18 years old still in high school, and if could donate I would.

-Aaron
-------------------------
Ardour is awesome! Keep up the good work!

On Jan 14, 2009, at 5:07 AM, "John Emmas" <johne53 at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick Shirkey"
> Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial  
> headache?
>>
>> There is lots of discussion but not much consensus. I definitely  
>> get the
>> impression that a large number of people don't actually want to see  
>> Ardour
>> funding succeed.
>>
> As the person who started off this thread, I'm dismayed by the above
> comment - and yet I feel bound to admit that it's exactly the same
> conclusion I was coming to myself.  One or two people have posted here
> to say they're already contributing financially - but if my  
> observations are
> anything to go by, for the majority, the only funding model they  
> want to see
> succeed is a model where somebody else ends up paying.
>
> One thing that's becoming clear is that any open source project  
> needs a
> critical mass of users below which, it cannot be sustained  
> (financially) by
> small, voluntary contributions alone.  This leaves 5 options I think:-
>
> 1)  Accept the situation and plough on regardless (i.e. hope that your
>  project wlll "grow out of" the problem and achieve critical mass).
> 2)  Use whatever donations exist to promote market awareness of the
>  project in the hope that critical mass will follow.
> 3)  Find a sponsor (or sponsors) with deep enough pockets to reduce
>  the reliance on small, personal donations.
> 4)  Arrange the project so that at least some element of it is only
>  available after payment of a fee.
> 5)  Charge for some kind of ancillary service, such as technical  
> support
>  (IMHO, only viable where the project has corporate clients).
>
> Just out of interest, can anyone point to a small open-source project
> (comparable in size with Ardour) that's succeeding in raising funds  
> (i.e.
> that ISN'T struggling?)  If anything comparable exists, it might  
> provide us
> with some further ideas for ways that could work for Ardour.
>
> John
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