Crowdfunding Haiku parts?

Feedback Ideas
1

I was wondering… Would there be any interest in organizing a crowdfunding for some Haiku parts that are of common interest to enough people that they are willing to support their development?

It came to my mind because I found myself thinking “I would pay for not having to add an USB-C Hub with a WiFi Dongle only to use Haiku” (because my networking card isn’t supported). And while I realized that my need is a niche enough that probably funding it would be hard, maybe there are other things, like the WebKitHaiku/WebPositive improvements, that members of the community would be wiling to fund work on them.

Is this a direction that was explored in the past? What are the thoughts on the topic?

2

Crowd-funding is all about the numbers. Loads of people all contribute a small amount, but because there are lots of them the total amount is respectable.
Sadly, I don’t think there are enough people out there to do fund niche areas of Haiku, and probably most of those who are willing to contribute cash to Haiku are already doing so.

3

As usual in life, and most annoyingly, an idea is rarely original. :slight_smile:
Crowdfunding has been discussed in the past.

1 Like
4

To sum up the previous discussion:

  • You can already do this using sites like Bountysource
  • You need to collect enough money for it to be worth it for someone to do the work. Maybe some people will accept a 50$ gift as a thank you for completing a task, but that will not be enough to enable them to leave their job and work more on Haiku. So you really need a budget in the 1000s $ range at least
  • You need to find someone willing to work on the task and able to spend time on it. That means probably someone who doesn’t have a full-time job, a family to care for, etc. And yet, the crowdfunding method is a bit uncertain, since once a task is completed, you have to find the next one, so there is little job security. Maybe some developers like that “bounty hunter” lifestyle, I’m certainly not one of them.

Also, things you can do as an alternative:

  • Donate to Haiku inc, and allow them to continue paying Waddlesplash (and maybe more devs, if the donations increase further). This doesn’t let you decide what he will work on, but:
  • Vote for tickets in the bugtracker (there are up and down arrows at the top right of every ticket), we will consider the votes to decide what goes into the next betas (while also trying to keep our goal to mostly fix bugs and ship R1) and the next releases after R1.
8 Likes