Hi, Dirk Stöcker wrote:
Things for which possible donations could be used: * awards for implementing enhancements, fixing bugs
I'm skeptical of such "bounties". They haven't worked for OSM in the past and they seldom work for any open source project (why work for free when you can get money).
Also, I expect there to be disagreement over which bits are worth a bounty and which aren't.
* awards for improving translations
We're an open source project. Translations need to be done by the people who want to use them. If those who would like JOSM in Swahili cannot muster the manpower to produce it then no money in the world will help - it's just like with data imports, you might be able to improve things for a moment by paying someone, but every change that is made will require new effort, and that only works if there are people who care.
* better SSL certificate
Another project has received funding from FOSSGIS for that. I believe we could too, or we could ask OSMF.
Currently my plan would be to implement Flattr and a PayPal donation button (if possible not to prominently on every page, otherwise only on startup page).
I see an accountability issue. One person would have to be the account holder for this and nobody would know how much money arrives in that account. Even if the account were handled by someone I trust, there would be enough others who would not trust that person and express suspicion.
And "own server" - you know what I think about JOSM being more and more a client to some JOSM server somewhere. I'd like to get rid of the server instead of building up even more capacity which will doubtless be filled by you with lots of clever Python contraptions that nobody else can maintain.
Instead of "collect money then see how we spend it", I'd suggest "define what we want, find out what it costs, then ask people to donate to OSM/FOSSGIS for that specific cause". - If a cause can be found that is worth spending money on, and I'm not convinced yet.
Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [email protected] ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" _______________________________________________ josm-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/josm-dev
