View Full Version : Pay-per-feature suggestion
why don't you implement a pay-per-feature facility?
you can fix an amount of cash for each feature. every donation can be targeted to some feature. if you reach the target, you give highest priority to *that* feature.
developers of blender (a 3d modeller and renderer) earned lots of money by promoting donate-for-feature:
one for leaving the code free (gpl) - don'r remember how much, i think 100.000 dollars (really)! and the other for developing and releasing a manual - more then 1000 dollars, see www.blender.org
c y
Cybermynd
2004-02-13, 21:31
that's an interesting idea. however, i wonder if someone throwing in $20 for something that wasn't too popular would ever get what he was donating for.
say i wanted speech synthesis so it would announce the media before playing. $20 and 2 years later i got nuthin'...
just as an example.
still, i think the idea has potential...
you will not have nothing. you will have something else. and there are good chances that it will be good, to you too.
in other words, you supported the project!
anyway, in my thoughts the list of available pay-per-features would (?) be restrict only to a small range, choosen by developers (or with a poll, why not).
that's it.
thebeast
2004-02-15, 22:08
i think this proposal is somewhat interesting. keep thinking about it, you never know, it might just make sense. it is one of the dilemmas of open source development, that a good "solution" might be different for each project, but similar on a smaller scale.
Gamester17
2004-02-15, 22:19
i find this idea interesting too, problems would be figuring out how-to recieve payments, how-to admin and who on the team would admin it
mvoosten
2004-02-15, 23:40
very nice idea!
thebeast
2004-02-19, 05:48
one can of course always donate via http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/info_contrib.htm
and perhaps send a message to the lead developer(s) about feature, but maybe the current donation page, could be of inspiration, for any suggestions on how pay-per-feature could be done.
i also think, if one could get the many users to donate more often (somehow!), xbmc developers might justify spending as much time as they do on it, without perhaps feeling as much a"sacrifice" of time.
of course there is also many people testing xbmc. i just had the idea that, a pay-for-xbmc support method would also make sense. i know of a couple of (pay-for-support) local sites like that (eksperten.dk) (http://www.eksperten.dk), where you get points for solving other peoples problems, and these points can then be used to buy other peoples answers.
this would probably make the most sense, if there was a link to a 3rd party website, where this pay-for-support could take place through a forum like eksperten.dk (http://www.eksperten.dk) or google answers (http://answers.google.com). i think it'd get people to help out more seriously (because they could see a benefit in doing so), and also people could get support easier. i think this is what's happening everywhere else.
but of course forum and irc support or discussion will never go away, it will just be in addition to that.
sounds like a good idea
frodo
titusonline
2004-02-19, 14:28
i'd be willing to pay if zip and rar support were added :d
after all xbmc is great as a dash...
cameronsto
2004-02-19, 16:05
i'd be willing to pay if zip and rar support were added :d
after all xbmc is great as a dash...
what are you wanting to do with zip and rar? i've seen this posted before but don't know the reason. is it so you can zip up your movies and such and have xbmc read them that way?
just curious.
-cameron
zip is on my lsit of stuff to look at. send me cash. ;)
playing media from rar volumes would be a killer feature, i think. a lot of people download media in rar format and this would save much unrarring time and temporary space.
i like the idea.
i'd donate(again) in order to get ogm and mkv sub/audio switching :)
thebeast
2004-02-20, 05:44
ok, now it's my chime. i donated what little i have in my paypal account, for now.
with frodo releasing so many streaming fixes, in such little time, i had to.
i know it's not a lot, but i want to find out how this paypal thing works first. also i'm a student, so for me it is money, but if some form of "carpooling" for features is organized (i will look into it, because it interests me a little), i will consider donating more.
the amount should cover one good beer (i didn't know what you drink frodo, grolsch?). i don't know if it's enough for a chimay!
thebeast
2004-02-20, 06:02
i found the site to do pay-for-support possibly: i'm looking at http://www.sharksforum.com/ - in any case it might be of some inspiration. update: after looking at it, it seems a bit hard to use, the interface could use som work, as could the categories.
i remembered an old "pay-for-feature" site i once saw, so i looked and rediscovered save-as-one-file support in mozilla: code bounty (http://www.dezyne.net/codebounty/), which i think could be of use, again for inspiration.
titusonline
2004-02-20, 15:24
i'd be willing to pay if zip and rar support were added :d
after all xbmc is great as a dash...
what are you wanting to do with zip and rar? *i've seen this posted before but don't know the reason. *is it so you can zip up your movies and such and have xbmc read them that way?
just curious.
-cameron
i am after zip and rar support to unzip/unrar files in file manager and have ability to zip/rar them too.
titusonline
2004-02-20, 15:25
zip is on my lsit of stuff to look at. send me cash. ;)
send cash to where exactly? ???
you can always donate to xbmc via paypal.
more details: http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/info_contrib.htm
frodo
Bhellium
2004-03-07, 01:26
can people write a message to the person he/she is donating to thru paypal?
if so what if you were to open a new topic in the forum named "pay per feature"?
here people can describe the feature they want. and then donate money and writing in the message what feature they are paying for?
Hullebulle
2004-03-07, 16:00
can people write a message to the person he/she is donating to thru paypal?
if so what if you were to open a new topic in the forum named "pay per feature"?
here people can describe the feature they want. and then donate money and writing in the message what feature they are paying for?
i think that way may cause some trouble. if someone suggest a new feaure and pay for it the same second he will be upset if it won't be coded within the next weeks even if it is a silly or impossible feature, don't you think?
it would be better to provide a list with possible future additions and to start coding after a fixed amount of money has been donated. but even this way wouldn't fit into the current way of development very well imho.
Bhellium
2004-03-08, 00:20
damn! i hate beeing wrong. you are right...
donations are a good idea, but pay-for-features is a can of worms.
when xbmp was really getting going, many people (myself included) were helping by submitting bugfixes and needing no more to keep them happy than to know that they fixed that bug.
the xbmp project took a funny, and at the time, controversial turn when development switched from a developer-initiated, poll-determined directive to concentrate on bug fixes, to a "damn it, bugfixing is boring but let's throw in a few more features". the developer's argument was that they did this for fun and so would program what they liked, so stfu and fix the damn bugs yourself. i believe that thread is still up on the xbmp forum.
developers working under the gnu have the freedom to express their skills as they see fit - unencumbered with a deadline or even a spec or budget. it's what they do and they're good at it. while a few of them like the sound of money (from reading above) i think it would be better to just let them code what and how they like. you wouldn't like it if one that specialised in say implementing some codec-related code decided to hold off until enough was donated to his cause would you?
donate if you like xbmc so much you would buy it off the shelf if it was so available.
thebeast
2004-03-08, 11:59
donations are a good idea, but pay-for-features is a can of worms.
when xbmp was really getting going, many people (myself included) were helping by submitting bugfixes and needing no more to keep them happy than to know that they fixed that bug.
the xbmp project took a funny, and at the time, controversial turn when development switched from a developer-initiated, poll-determined directive to concentrate on bug fixes, to a "damn it, bugfixing is boring but let's throw in a few more features". the developer's argument was that they did this for fun and so would program what they liked, so stfu and fix the damn bugs yourself. i believe that thread is still up on the xbmp forum.
developers working under the gnu have the freedom to express their skills as they see fit - unencumbered with a deadline or even a spec or budget. it's what they do and they're good at it. while a few of them like the sound of money (from reading above) i think it would be better to just let them code what and how they like. you wouldn't like it if one that specialised in say implementing some codec-related code decided to hold off until enough was donated to his cause would you?
donate if you like xbmc so much you would buy it off the shelf if it was so available.
or donate when a new feature you like is added.
you can write in advance also that you would like to see this future - and then if it happens, you can donate.
that's a good way of letting the developers know also, when they did something, that users like. far too often, the developers only read negative comments from users. sometimes a little money makes a lot of sense. imagine if you got a little paypal salary from many hundred people, at irregular intervals, that's saying something too.
thebeast
2004-03-08, 12:07
can people write a message to the person he/she is donating to thru paypal?
if so what if you were to open a new topic in the forum named "pay per feature"?
here people can describe the feature they want. and then donate money and writing in the message what feature they are paying for?
i think that way may cause some trouble. if someone suggest a new feaure and pay for it the same second he will be upset if it won't be coded within the next weeks even if it is a silly or impossible feature, don't you think?
it would be better to provide a list with possible future additions and to start coding after a fixed amount of money has been donated. but even this way wouldn't fit into the current way of development very well imho.
i don't think the idea is that bad. i think it actually is the best of other alternatives (some of which i suggested previous in thread).
it should be understood that there are rules for such a forum: no time frame to pick up on bugs, and only when the developers have time, and then no time-frame on implementation, or amount of features at once.
if users don't adhere to these rules, both written and unwritten, then a moderator should lock the thread and change the topic to say: closed due to spamming ;)
all in all, i think a forum should be done with "things you'd donate for" or similar, but with the idea behind it, that moderators make the rules, and that one should only bid with understanding of this.
it would rule, i think, if such a forum was not too money centric, but it'd suck because people suck. and sometimes people don't appreciate and sometimes people don't keep their promises.
Gamester17
2004-10-31, 17:28
there is a lot of things i would like to see in xbmc that i would be prepaired to make a donation to have developed.
how about this variation on your idea to collect donations and if it takes off i think it could change the whole open source model
- if you have a request submit it along with a donation
- when it is submitted it goes on a list of requirements
- if other people want it then they can also donate.
the requirement with the highest donations is the one the xbmc team prioritize there work on. if you want to change the teams priorities and get them to work on your requirement then you better make a donation for the requirement you want them to work on.
if you guys do a pilot on this idea and it works then lets propose it to sourceforge so they can add the feature to there site. i am a project manager for many open source projects and i have people email me requirements all the time but unfortunatly in the past i have had no idea what my users believe is the highest priority.
i see what you're coming from and as you can see this thread here it has been suggested before. but say all let's wait and see how it goes with the "donations for dvd-menu in xbmc campaign (link)" (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=1;t=7410) and if that goes smoothly then maybe we can set up a more broader scheme. however i think it would not be wise to let users donate for whatever feature they wish as then we could example end up with 100 donations for 50 different things and that would not be coming; no, instead before we even think about offering something like that our developers would have to limited it to maybe 10 or (even better just) 5 specific and realistic features and set very clear goals for those users could 'only' choose to donate to one of those specific 5/10 features or simply just submit a general donation. then only after one of those features have been achieved and the fund-pot been received by the developer who made it could we add another feature to that short list of specific feature available to donate too. ....i don't know that's just how i would imagine it right now, might not be like that at all if we even set something like that up.
ps! you should go ahead and e-mail your suggestion to the sourceforge.net admins anyway, you'll find they are very approachable ;)