I hate to tell you, but we're not going to be doing this. Projects are
welcome to ask for donations of course, but when a similar system of tips
and donations was implemented in sourceforge, it was comically underused
and led to imo deep divides within projects that have more than 1
developer.
Kickstarter has seen some traction in this kind of market, so good on them.
On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Serge <sergem...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello.
>
> Basically I want to suggest a global feature request. I don't know any
> official google email to send these ideas, and this mailing list is the
> best place I've found so far, so excuse me if I sent them to the wrong
> place, and please, tell the correct address to send them.
>
> In general these ideas are about building a stronger bridge between users
> and software developers. But they have a power to become a base for
> a new type and motivation of open source software development.
>
>
> Really short summary
> ====================
> This is a long email. I tried to explain reasons behind each of the
> suggestions I made. But on practice it boils down to a few things.
>
> It would be great, if google allowed some 1-click way for users
> * to request some features from software developers
> * and allow them to pay for these features if they wish
> and for developers:
> * to set the price for the implementation of suggested features
> * to fork any other open source project and sell some features for it
>
> Why you may be interested in these ideas? Well, on one hand, these ideas
> are good for developers and they allow users to become an important part
> of open source community. On the other hand some of these ideas are about
> money, so you can i.e. get some percent from money transfers. ;)
>
>
> Introduction
> ============
> Open source community is growing every day. New solutions appear. Projects
> like "github" bring collaboration among open source developers to a new
> level. Now to become a developer of any project you just need to push a
> "Fork" button... Well... I'm sure you know that. But one important thing
> that's still weak is a public connection between developers and their
> users.
> (In "public connections" both "public" and "connections" are important, but
> let's talk about connections first.)
>
> A lot of users have something to say about the program they use. They may
> tell what they like or don't like, or what they miss... Many of them can
> even pay to get what they want. But how can they do that? In the best
> case official site of the program has a forum or mailing list with some
> developers visiting it. But in many cases the only thing user can get is a
> bugtracker, or even just email of the author. Not too friendly.
>
>
> Idea 1
> ======
> So the first idea I suggest: in addition to easy collaboration for
> developers (which is important for this idea anyway) create an easy
> interface to connect developers and their users.
>
> There're always more people using the software than people developing it.
> (!)
> Imagine that a user opens official site of some program and sees there a
> list of good features, bad features and missing ones. And all these lists
> were created by other users! User can hit a +1 for any feature, or he can
> create one more. And these are not just some "i like it" comments, but a
> useful information, that may be crucial in selecting a software.
>
> This is good for developers as well, since they see what features are
> actually most important, and what new features should be worked on.
>
>
> Idea 2
> ======
> Of course, developer may not be interested in those new features. So what
> should make him implement them? And here we're getting to the second idea:
> users can pay him for the implementation.
>
> The key part of this idea is that users pay not for receiving the feature,
> but for implementing it. This is what makes the idea work for open source
> projects.
>
> Just a user alone may not have enough money to pay for his "feature". And
> here comes the "public" part of "public connection" — he is not alone.
> There're a lot of users out there. A lot of them may wish to pay for the
> "feature". And Internet makes getting all the users together possible.
>
> So developer can look over the users' feature requests and put his "feature
> suggestion", saying how much money he wants for it. When enough money is
> collected he releases the software update (or source for open source
> software) with that feature included — developer gets the money, users get
> the feature, everybody is happy. :)
>
> What if he don't get money? I.e. what if requested feature is so complex
> and rare, that there's not enough users to pay for it? In that case it's up
> to developer. If he likes the feature he may do it for free. If he doesn't
> then... nothing happens. He won't release the feature and won't get the
> money. Users also won't loose anything — they don't have the feature, but
> they lost no money as well.
> (It's an everything-or-nothing scheme — if feature was not released withing
> specified time interval then no money is taken from users)
>
>
> Idea 3
> ======
> If developer can't/don't want to do that even for the money then the open
> source hits in. The sources are open, so any other developer can come,
> write the code and get the money. The third idea is: make it easy for
> anyone to fork the project and work on it.
>
> This simple idea together with other two may have interesting results. For
> example it may bring up a lot of freelancers, looking through the most
> wanted features and selling them.
>
> As a side-effect this makes any open source project immortal. It won't
> matter even if original author abandon the project. Since as long as
> there're people willing to pay for the work there would be people willing
> to work. There're other good side-effects as well.
>
>
> Summary
> =======
> So there're 3 things to implement:
>
> 1. Public collaboration between user and developer. Make it easy for users
> to speak. That may also attract more users, because users usually like to
> read opinions of others.
>
> I imagined it as a part of the googlecode main page of the project:
> a user opens the main page and next to the usual things ("about", "news",
> "screenshots"...) he sees list of "Most liked features", "Most missed
> features" and a button "Me too" (+1) near each of the items.
>
> Technically it's similar to a simplified and easily accessible bugtracker.
>
> 2. Ability for developers to easily collect money from users. That should
> motivate developers. And it should attract more users to those projects,
> that are more actively supported.
>
> That could be a part of the "Most missed features" component, where
> developer can say how much he wants for the feature, and user can not only
> hit "+1" but also spend some money for it.
>
> Additionally there can be an extension to the usual Support/Donate button,
> where one can select in the donation dialog what feature he wishes to spend
> the money for.
>
> 3. Easy collaboration between developers. Ability for other developers to
> fork the project in 1-click and implement/sell features that official
> developers can't/don't do. That should attract more developers to work on
> the project, get more features implemented, more users happy, etc.
>
> A good implementation of this thing may be tough. Other developers would
> have to either fork entire project, or create branches inside any project.
> And either their features should somehow get displayed near features of
> original project, or there would have to be one more list of "Most active
> branches" on the main page. There should also be some kind of global
> history between projects, since branch author may wish to generate a diff
> and propose it to the original author.
>
>
> Those 3 ideas can be implemented separately, but together they form a base
> of development scheme that should work for open-source projects with any
> license (GPL, MIT, Apache...). It would be great if these ideas find their
> way into google services.
>
>
> Will it work?
> =============
> Will these ideas get any users? Well they already have them. I've seen
> cases when developers of some open source project just asked for money to
> do something on the official site. Just to name a few:
> * 2005-08-05 developers of world-known project mplayer faced hardware
> problems, they asked for money for new servers, and they got them in a
> few weeks
> * In september 2008 devs of not that much known LiVES video editor asked
> $6000 for v1.0 release. It took half a year, but they raised almost $8000
> * Entire "Humble Bundle" is based on the second idea. But on May 2010 game
> developers said that they will release sources if they collect $1,000,000.
> And they got it in about a week.
>
> Separately some of my ideas already have implementations. For example
> github is a very good example of third idea. Second idea on its own was
> done by projects like Kickstarter, LinuxFund, pledgie.com, etc. But I've
> not seen all the ideas together.
>
>
> Possible implementation
> =======================
> There can be a lot of different ways to bring these ideas to life, and of
> course it's up to you which way to choose.
>
> For example on google code you can add "Most liked features" (or extend
> existing issue tracker to support them). Then add a field "I'd paid $xxx
> for it" to "Most missed features" comments. Then allow anybody to have a
> private branch in any projects. And bring short summary of all these to
> the Main_page.
>
> All these things should probably be turned on by default to allow support
> of open source projects, that were abandoned by its author. (I'm not sure
> there's a reason to turn them off)
>
> If google code gets a closer integration with android market (or even if it
> does not) you can get some of these ideas there. First, there must appear a
> new type of application, that is free by default, but if you wish you can
> pay for it as much as you want. And if you pay you get a list of "features"
> and can select, which one you wish to spend your money for. The default one
> should probably be "I just want to pay for the program", and there should
> also be an option "Write my own feature request".
>
> I intentionally avoid the word "donation" because this is not a donation.
> You're not donating money, you're paying for some work, for a feature that
> someone does for you.
>
>
> "Pay as much as you want"
> =========================
> Using arbitrary price instead of fixed one is an important part of second
> idea. Different people live in different countries and $5 in Africa is
> different from $5 in USA. So to allow anybody to participate there should
> be no upper/lower limits in payments.
>
> But also Humble Indie Bundle experiment in 2010 had shown that a good
> implementation is also important. For example showing "Average payment"
> motivates people to pay more ("Hey, I'm more than average man!"). And
> putting a simple "Top10 said" summary turns it into a chatbox where the
> more you pay the longer you stay. :) (It was fun to watch such a "chat" on
> humblebundle, where usual people paid $2000 just for fun to say "Hah,
> bite that!")
>
>
> Is that all?
> ============
> Well there're still a lot of details to discuss. For example:
> * how to protect from spam and cheating in features list?
> * if I suggested a "paid" feature and then saw a better one, can I move
> money to another feature?
> * can I move money to a feature from another developer?
> * can I change my mind and get my money back?
> * etc.
> So there're still a lot of things to think about. But in general — Yes,
> that's all. For software.
>
> But the ideas themselves are not limited to software only. Books, pictures,
> audios, movies... Almost everything can be released this way. Book writers
> can, for example, upload their books to google-books with a mark "You can
> read first 5 chapters, but the rest will be released when $xxx is
> collected".
> Photos can be visible as a thumbnail only until they get paid for release.
> Preview-only for movies... etc.
>
> Almost none of that is implemented yet. And I believe that google could be
> the first and the best to connect all the pieces together.
>
> That's all. Thanks for reading.
>
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