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Congratulations on meeting (or nearly meeting) your fund raising goal

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db90h:
Congratulations on meeting (or nearly meeting) your fund raising goal!

I must admit that I am surprised by the generosity shown to DonationCoder. My experiences in the F/OSS world have shown me that a simple 'Donate' button doesn't do it. To get donations you must be truly engaged with those people in a pretty intimate way. I would be curious to know the frequency of 'large' donations, vs a bunch of small donations, but I know that's private info ;). It just amazes me.  It's contradictory to this mucked up capitalist world, and I have to give you credit for pulling it off and not compromising on your principles. Of course, I haven't compromised on my principles either, but I have had to charge a modest fee for extended capabilities of my software rather than solicit donations. I am not sure I would survive if I tried your approach - too few people like me on a 'personal' level ;p. The few who do like me I tend to drive away at some point or another.

Anyway, congratulations ... That's not a small number, at least not to me. It's an amazing number.

nosh:
The few who do like me I tend to drive away at some point or another
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.

It's like I have a twin!  :Thmbsup:

donotcrack, welcome to DC! (Lol @ the nick!  :D)

TaoPhoenix:
Congratulations on meeting (or nearly meeting) your fund raising goal!

I must admit that I am surprised by the generosity shown to DonationCoder. My experiences in the F/OSS world have shown me that a simple 'Donate' button doesn't do it. To get donations you must be truly engaged with those people in a pretty intimate way. I would be curious to know the frequency of 'large' donations, vs a bunch of small donations, but I know that's private info ;). It just amazes me.  It's contradictory to this mucked up capitalist world, and I have to give you credit for pulling it off and not compromising on your principles. Of course, I haven't compromised on my principles either, but I have had to charge a modest fee for software rather than solicit donations. I am not sure I would survive if I tried your approach - too few people like me on a 'personal' level ;p. The few who do like me I tend to drive away at some point or another.

Anyway, congratulations ... That's not a small number, at least not to me. It's an amazing number.
-db90h (April 14, 2012, 09:15 AM)
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There's some important differences here vs a traditional donate.
1. Multi donation processors. I despise Paypal; and that's the polite version!  :) I am willing to consider (and did) donating, without it becoming a fight between the receiver vs having to deal with Paypal. So here, I used Kagi, and it went fine. I've seen Plimus elsewhere too. They seem okay.

2. Multi value. There's a little bit of a different feel when it's just 1 guy doing a thing, yeah it's helpful to donate, but soon you're out $300 by the time you're done. Here, while the choice of programs has a couple of gaps, the coders are usually actively responding to pests like me!  ;D So it's like an entrance badge to a slightly crazed carnival. Then in between playing with the apps, the discussions have some of the best comments I've seen, the troll control is very good, and it doesn't have the junk-post 10-year memes of places like slashdot. (Which is also in my top 5.)

3. Meanwhile, the "donation spread" isn't 100% private - this is the age of the internet gang, and before you jump all over me for being Captain Obvious, what the internet does best is Long Tails. So follow me here - we just had this giant bar telling us how much money came in... are you telling me that not one of DC's 100,000 members made a chart? "Gentle Obscurity" is a Pre-Internet notion! : )

db90h:
Interesting TaoPhoenix, thanks for explaining what makes the difference for you - and likely most everyone else. I'm not sure how many other active developers there really are here besides Mouser, but I know there are a few willing to pick up odd jobs. That's been one of the goals DC hasn't accomplished, to be honest -- in that attracting other developers would require some sort of donation distribution system. Or has this been tackled via direct donations to specific developers?

As you say, the Forum content and community is a good one. Troll control is indeed *very* important too.. they can kill an entire forum very easily.

@nosh - I suspect we're not the only ones with such an affliction ;p.

TaoPhoenix:
Interesting TaoPhoenix, thanks for explaining what makes the difference for you - and likely most everyone else. I'm not sure how many other active developers there really are here besides Mouser, but I know there are a few willing to pick up odd jobs. That's been one of the goals DC hasn't accomplished, to be honest -- in that attracting other developers would require some sort of donation distribution system. Or has this been tackled via direct donations to specific developers?

As you say, the Forum content and community is a good one. Troll control is indeed *very* important too.. they can kill an entire forum very easily.

@nosh - I suspect we're not the only ones with such an affliction ;p.

-db90h (April 14, 2012, 09:59 AM)
--- End quote ---

Well, less'ee - the donation system lets you both put moolah into the general fund for server costs etc, or parcel it out to specific people. (Mouser, can it be any member at all? Or just "registered developers?") This segues into my next topic:

"Active Developers" - in a sense, any time you see any NANY entry, any "announce my software" entry, and any bugfix, that's active development. It's fine that "some are more active than others". I can say that I paid equal parts to Mouser, Skwire, and Kyrathaba from my donation. I've chatted with Anand on a couple of his apps. MilesAhead is looking into a bug for me on his app. I've probably crossed paths with a couple more devs here at lesser levels.

Meanwhile, in the "Odd Job" dept, I know my suggested price ranges have been low, but I think the current big hole is what I've been calling "Coding Lunch Commissions" - bigger than the "Snack", but we can't normally afford y'all's professional rates either. My quick instinct is to make a commission a minimum of $50, with a little room for more, and try to "minimax" the feature set - I always ask "This sounds simple, but is it in fact damn hard?". Rule of honor is to try not to crush the guy with a single 500-hour feature. So I don't yet have the economics of that mastered yet, but I'm always willing to listen to/for volunteers.

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