BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

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Pesho
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by Pesho »

That's a donator page and it still doesn't give any clue where the money actually goes though... As far as i know it goes into keeping the site running, but that's more of a guess because ive heard it mentioned sometimes. And quite honestly, that is very disappointing ... Let's forget "Paying for USB" or "Paying for Audio" for a moment and consider donating for whatever is most needed to be done/acheivable right now. I'd personally donate for anything, as long as i see that my money is reaching the devs and giving results. Donating is something everyone can do regardless of programming skills, and i'm sure there are many people who are willing to help out as long as they know their money will go into something real, not just a vague "dark cloud" as cmoibenlepro said.

Lets hear out the devs' proposals on what they wish to work on and how much money is needed to get it done faster.
Last edited by Pesho on Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
wildschwein
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by wildschwein »

cmoibenlepro is right,

yes there is the list, but it's to "dark cloudy" :-) like he said - also in my opinion.

yes, I know it would be very difficult to adress the money to developers. Who gets how much ? Are all getting some money, or only some "exclusive" parts ? But in fact all parts are important, that's clear.

Every single reactos developer is HIGHLY IMPORTANT !

Hm...on argument could be, that developing USB (for example) is INDEED real hard work, and only very few developers have the skill to do that. So this could be "rewarded". But then there should be a project goal, a project timeline, specifications, etc...like in "real projects" for a company.

I don't really know it, but i am only still convinced, that a lot of "joe public reactos fans" are WILLING to give some money, if they would more know where it flows...

Could you please think about this, Reactos Team ? How could money from a "part-project-donation" be "canalized" correct and fair-mainded. Perhaps some headwort for which part someone would spend.

DONATIONS COULD BE a "SUPER-IGNITER" FOR REACTOS ! (Visualey i think at the moment to "Back to Future Part III", the "super igniters" to make the time-machine-steam-train faster. On german called "SUPER-ZÜNDI" :-) )
But it must be defined who and where the donations flow to. This must do Reactos Team, or sb of them. or Project Coordinator.

THINK OF THE GERMAN REACTOS FANS, germans in general like to spend money, if they are convinced of an idea AND (!) if they know the money flows correctly to what it is said.

And think of some COMPANYS that are perhaps also interessted to get rid of paiing the MS Licence for Windows. COMANYS are also used to spend (in germany) because somethimes of tax advantages...

just my 50 cents....
wildschwein
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by wildschwein »

a like to add something: yes pesho is also right in my opinion.

It's not so import for what I spend. USB would be fine, but if developers say that there are more important things, that could be speed up by donations, i can accept that ! And I think other reactos fans are also this opinion. But, there must be more clearly visible on Reactos website, how many money was already raised, for what, and what is the donation-goal (which part project, and which amount is aimed for).

Look at wikipedia, they are raising millions of dollars (yes, i know they are much "bigger"....)
fred02
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by fred02 »

cmoibenlepro wrote:For example, if the donation page included information about how much money was donated in the past year, how this money was spent, which developer who received the donation, what project was acheived, etc.
wildschwein wrote:there must be more clearly visible on Reactos website, how many money was already raised, for what, and what is the donation-goal (which part project, and which amount is aimed for).
It makes me think about BSD fund. For example, according to the this page pcc compiler has almost reached its fund mark and most of its goals. On the other hand, I don't think it is able to compile BSD kernel yet. :cry:
Have somebody experience with this BSD fund or may be talk to them to see how they had it organised?
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Black_Fox
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by Black_Fox »

It is - last sentence in this paragraph. The other things to think about is probable lack of complete AMD64 and ARM capabilities :)
RaptorEmperor
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by RaptorEmperor »

If the team did want to have donation targets, it wouldn't necessarily have to be USB. Sure, USB is a big leap, but if there's some other, minor, feature in ReactOS that the devs know could be finished with a few weeks' work, then that would be a feasible target. The Community Funded Ideas page tells people what they can donate towards, but doesn't actually direct people to where their donations would best be utilized. Preferably, the CFI page would list all the areas it does now, but mention a current target. That way, you don't have a little money for this, a little money for that, and not enough to get any single project done. By guiding people to donate towards a single project (but not necessarily forcing them to) donations could be used more productively, even if they don't necessarily increase.

As the others have said, listing how the donations were spent could help for reasons of transparency and accountability. Perhaps these ideas could be used to revamp the Donations page. It would have a link to donate, the link to the community funded ideas list, and periodically we could have updates on how the donations were used, such as maintenance and upkeep, development towards a target on the CFI, etc. You could even have a list of completed CFI's to show which projects donations helped pay for in the past.
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Pesho
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by Pesho »

Yeah, as i mentioned, there should be something like a "Target of the Month(s)" on the front page where it lists an important goal, perhaps a certain feature that is nearing a finished state. People could donate towards getting it done faster. It's a more "down to earth" but acheivable thing to do.
jgwright
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by jgwright »

Yeah, as i mentioned, there should be something like a "Target of the Month(s)" on the front page where it lists an important goal, perhaps a certain feature that is nearing a finished state. People could donate towards getting it done faster. It's a more "down to earth" but acheivable thing to do.
Good idea. Any solution that encourages a higher total of donations - rather that trying to juggle the 'normal' income - is great. As you said it's simple (or should be) and that front page gets an enormous number of hits. But it'd have to stay 'fresh' - if it was anything like the roadmap it wouldn't change for months or it'd remain for features that'd already been completed.

(Is there no easier way to do quotes?)
Aeneas
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by Aeneas »

I have been following this thread rather loosely but... have you reached the point where the ideas can be summed up, put into shape, and presented? If so, would anything speak against making an official proposition to the project leadership? I understand that there are several models possible (and I actually favour that THE USERS can determine the target rather than the developers; what is "more important" is, in fact, a notion determined by those TO WHOM anything shall be important'; besides, the developers are in this in an inherent conflict of interest - they are rather tempted to propose "easy goals", and moreover, they are vulnerable in that they cannot really put a tough goal for a colleague of theirs - to keep the atmosphere of co-operation friendly, but we users have no such scruples; we are egocentric and "WANT WANT WANT", but that will actually drive things forward).

In particular, the system must incorporate some "bail-out-route": what happens if a goal has been donated for but never executed? Shall the money "stay there forever", or, e.g. after one year, be attributable to other goals by pure voting decision (i.e. for now not weighted as to the donated amount, just to keep it simple)? - What happens if a goal has been met only "half-way"? (Maybe again some majority decision as to whether to grant the bounty or not? Maybe such decisions can be conducted periodically, e.g., after a "core work phase" appropriate to the task, every one or two months?)

I actually think we might as well give it a shot; we could start it with an internal test run where e.g. only people registered on this webpage can donate. That will keep the initial participation small enough, so if this utterly fails for any reason, it will be at least more or less confined. :P

I do not see any reason why to only talk about this. We should DO IT!
livestrong2109
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by livestrong2109 »

:roll: I am impressed by your emotion, full of vim and ver. Though I am soured by your lack of understanding.

Any developer will work on what they can do best not what is easiest. As a developer of many sorts, this project is anything but easy. The team is working on major kernel components. Network Stacks, and an adaption of the wine32 subsystem (arwiniss), and as many of you complain even usb.

Give these developers time and space, and the work will get done, I can see how someone with less experience would think coders might be lazy, but in fact many take it as a challenge to push the envelope if they have that experience. Hiring some would be developer or forcing those with specialized talents to work outside their comfort zone will only create frustration, as well as broken or hacked code.

Step back, and let the hackers work their magic as they hack into the night.
As the public is the next most annoying thing to a cracker. Lord Help You All...
Wesley Howard
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jgwright
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by jgwright »

and I actually favour that THE USERS can determine the target rather than the developers; what is "more important" is, in fact, a notion determined by those TO WHOM anything shall be important'
Well that's the way it is with a traditional bounty system as it is usually understood ...
In particular, the system must incorporate some "bail-out-route": what happens if a goal has been donated for but never executed? Shall the money "stay there forever", or, e.g. after one year, be attributable to other goals by pure voting decision (i.e. for now not weighted as to the donated amount, just to keep it simple)? - What happens if a goal has been met only "half-way"? (Maybe again some majority decision as to whether to grant the bounty or not? Maybe such decisions can be conducted periodically, e.g., after a "core work phase" appropriate to the task, every one or two months?)
Easy. We need a sort of executive officer for the week. How about we take it in turns? All the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting, by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two thirds majority in the case of ...
Step back, and let the hackers work their magic as they hack into the night.
As the public is the next most annoying thing to a cracker. Lord Help You All...
Indeed! :)
wildschwein
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by wildschwein »

Step back, and let the hackers work their magic as they hack into the night.
As the public is the next most annoying thing to a cracker. Lord Help You All...

Yes, you are also right, but ... lot of Reactos Fans are feeling so keen on, and and at the same time "helpless" because they WANT Reactos to GO FORTHER, but they can't really help, not with programming because of missing skill not with testing because of missing time...
Aeneas
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by Aeneas »

Sorry, but "nothing can be done to help, because we do what we can" and "we cannot do more than we do, because nothing is being done to help" is CIRCULAR!

Even if the CURRENT developers do what they can, you are not truly attracting FUTURE or OTHER developers, and the bounty system COULD. I am against this "sit back and watch" attitude, because it has a charm of ... FreeDOS. I really like to play with it; but no, it is NOT my main desktop OS. And I really do not see why some developer might be "offended" if the public decides to establish a bounty system.

And I see what I see: AROS seems to have USB, as opposed to ReactOS; 0.3.12 is not out - and this whole thing is being developed for a decade. The developers are under way under 100.

I think we have been "sitting back and letting them code" long enough, and I am facing the results cooly. I am impressed by the work achieved by a thirty-something group; but I am not impressed with the fact that it IS A THIRTY-SOMETHING GROUP!

I read that by sheer number of developers, Firefox is beating ReactOS 10x-100x:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/12/14/121912/21

I know I am seeing the matter a bit ... maybe too enthusiastically, but you see, in a "unixy" world where everything apart from Windows is just some kind of Unix, be it Linux, BSD or something else, I think innovation is being suffocated, and ReactOS is a true shimmer of light. But what does it do? Sit and code... one major feature every 200 years or so... This needs improvement! And it does not need improvement through straining the existing developers - they invest a lot in this project; but their limits are apparently reached, and some pure quantitative widening seems, at least to me, necessary.
SuperDog
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by SuperDog »

51% of all commits ever made were done by 13 people.
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Pesho
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Re: BIG REQUEST: Donate for USB !

Post by Pesho »

Look, I don't want to be forcing anybody to do this or that, all i want to do is help out and make the process go smoother and faster. My proposal is to have something like our own little "Summer of Code", collect a few bucks and help someone out with whatever they're working on. It gives motivation and shows that we care, not just demand. Right now there is too big of a gap between the community and the devs. I realize there are a ton of whiny babies out there who will keep nagging for new releases, but there are also many who show a lot of understanding and support. And i seriously want to start seeing that donation money with the current system actually reaching the devs because it's ridiculous. Us common folks can discuss it all we want, but i'm interested to know the fireball's take on all this.

Let's give it a try and see how it works out.
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