I was wondering what kind of things, if any, they would be interested in working on for money? Here are some things I’m interested in seeing personally:
KVM or other hardware-assisted virtualization
wxWidgets
Music software like Qtractor or LV2
Portaudio
Support for running 32-bit software
Fixing usability problems like crashes, the audio pop that happens every time media_server starts, or the weird icon placement on the desktop
Actually haiku inc funding is ment to be more system development. This means improving the Haiku OS itself not writing apps for haiku. This means. a full time haiku developer would be more repsonsible for fixing all the tickets in trac: https://dev.haiku-os.org/query.
Or maybe improve certain parts of it, like the WebKit port so that we have a nativ Web Kit (Renderer for Websites) for haiku.
It looked to me like there were three sections in that article and that the Liberapay section was unrelated to Haiku Inc. Maybe I got it wrong. I could also consider donating for someone fixing tickets in trac, depending on which tickets those would be.
Kernel crashes and application crashes are still a common thing while using Haiku.
About audio pop, you can hear a “pop!” sound coming from the speakers when Haiku boots or if you restart media_server. This doesn’t happen in Windows and it’s annoying, especially if the speaker volume is high.
I could look at opening tickets. I didn’t think about it because I thought both issues were obvious and well-known.
Just for reference, I get no pop or other sound when media_server starts or restarts. My system uses HDA – what’s yours? (There is a problem with resampling artefacts – playing a 44.1kHz file at my usual 48kHz for example. Haiku has no higher-level interpolation like BeOS used to have.)
I also very seldom get a kernel crash. Apps like WebPositive still seem to die under certain conditions (depending on the rev – I seldom have the latest…).
And what do you mean by “weird icon placement”? I place my icons wherever I want!
I seem to remember on BeOS R5 that media server pops when starting/stopping on certain sound cards and not others. No I don’t remember which ones. Decade and a half has passed…
A common mistake, unfortunately. More than money, I do need input from users to know what to fix.
A little explanation on how liberapay works (it is a bit unusual): the donations there are anonymous, so people who receive something from Liberapay don’t know who is sending the money. So, this is really a donation, and meant to show your appreciation of a dev’s already completed work, not to fund future work. If you are interested in paying someone for a specific goal, a better solution would be something like bountysource (but no one from Haiku is currently active there) - or for big enough tasks, run your own crowdfunding campaign to hire someone.
In my personal case, I already have a full-time job and little time to dedicate to Haiku, as a result I can only spend it on my personal needs. I plan to use any donated funds through Liberapay by donating them back to other people I want to support, including the Liberapay team themselves, at least until I get enough income there for considering quitting my job.
My most recent Haiku-compatible computer uses HDA. I had another computer before that which also used HDA. I also used Haiku over a decade ago with a computer that used AC97. They all have had the same issue. It’s a single pop that happens when audio initializes (on boot or if you restart media_server). I’m not talking about pops during audio playback when everything is already running.
The spacing between icons is even, and they never appear on top of each other. Even if you move an icon manually, it will kinda snap in place. On Haiku, icons appear kinda arbitrarily and often an icon will appear on top of another icon so you have to move it out of the way manually.
Thanks, I think I understand. Well, Bountysource could work too. I’m really fine with pretty much anything. The one thing is that I would want my money to go to a specific goal, because my funds are limited and I want to use them in a way which will have the most impact on my computing.
Anyway, if any other developer is interested, just let me know and we can talk about funding something in a way that works for both parties.
Strange. Seems to be unique to you . I’ve never heard a hint of it…
There’s always the ‘Cleanup’ menu item (or alt-K) if you want the icons spaced on a grid. Personally I much prefer the ability to stuff them where I want – especially on the desktop.
We already have a mostly-working wxWidgets port (see the wxqt package.) Qtractor and LV2 ports should not be incredibly difficult, and @extrowerk might do it if asked and/or bribed with certain beverages…
This will be more difficult. I started looking into it, and I think @mmu_man did some time before I, but I don’t think anyone got a working version of it. It’s probably possible, but I don’t know who would have time or money to do something like that.
As for developers who might work on contract: @korli, @jua, @jessicah – I know they all used to, but that was some time ago, so probably things are different now.
I also thought that wxWidgets was in an early state but I could be wrong. I would prefer a more native port of wxWidgets (especially considering https://wiki.wxwidgets.org/WxQt/Status) than going through Qt, but if it is indeed working, I’ll consider it a lower priority.
As for Qtractor, it depends on ALSA and Jack. These would need to be replaced with either Haiku-native or cross-platform libraries, which I assume is considerable work. LV2 should be easier however.
I don’t mind paying for beverages of course. If I know the price, I can donate that. Or, if @extrowerk prefers that I buy something and send it in a package, that could work too.
Also, if anyone wants to work on something which isn’t specifically listed here, I may or may not fund it depending on whether it sounds interesting or important to me.
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. I’ve never heard a hint of it…