Pay for Arch?

zenlord · 2009-06-25 07:44:29

Allan wrote:

zenlord wrote:
Devs could tell someone who whines about 'the next brilliant idea for Arch' to either provide a patch or pay up.
we already do half of that...

I am aware of that. The other half can be an incentive for the devs and at the same time makes it possible for a non-programmer-user to actually contribute to the system. Please don't think that I am not happy with the development of Arch Linux - I'm just looking at it from a user POV.

Aprz · 2009-06-25 10:30:03

Personally, if this was the case, I would think that I wouldn't be buying the operating system, but buying a book or magazine such as system administrator manual that comes with Arch instead of the other way around. I've seen that a couple of times, mostly with magazines.

rson451 · 2009-06-25 11:48:07

Meyithi wrote:

Some sort of annual membership would suit Arch better IMO. Maybe offer a "Subscriber" forum group with a few subscriber only forums, newsletter and perks such as colored user names in the same way that Neowin handles it. Nobody is left out but you can show your support and gain a few perks and maybe a lil' bit of kudos as well.

I'm no longer a fan of that forum, but I think this would be a decent idea. There would probably be a decent buy in as well. The only drawback that I see is possibly having to add mods to the forums to enable these features, but mods tend to make maintenance and upgrades more of a pain in the ass. Then again, I'm not familiar with the forum software, these features may already be there.

josomebody · 2009-06-25 18:35:13

I'm all for throwing the devs and support a few bones and keep them as reimbursed for their time as possible, but I'm really not sure falling into the trap of retail model income or any kind of mass-marketing or publicity is a good idea. One thing that drew me to Arch besides the greater freedom and functionality over certain larger distros was the relatively small size of the community. A small community means an easier community to help and be helped by. The support channels aren't clogged with garbage questions, answers, and chatter, and there's no bold division between insiders and outsiders. I really prefer that to having a few devs and support guys having to deal with mass infuxes of newbs every three months when a new release comes out or to having an elite set of know-it-alls whose feet are not to be stepped on. This is what free software was meant to be like.

darthaxul · 2009-06-26 00:29:48

if you heard this video you probably already know why your not paying for anything linux based.
http://www.netc.com.br/video/YoYL4R3Te2 … ut-it.html
but if not, then watch the video and get smarter about what you can do really help desktop for linux.
I thought the guy was 90% right on about what needs to be done.

Dusty · 2009-06-26 02:37:39

Wow, old thread... I think the status quo since the original post has served us well so far, don't you? Developers who are motivated by quality instead of money will churn out better work. Devs that don't work anymore don't have any incentive to hang around and do half-ass stuff instead of passing it off to someone more motivated.

I have considered writing a bounty system, not into the main site, but as a side project, where people can post money in escrow and people, (anyone: devs, community, microsoft employees) can complete the request. I decided the primary source of income would be interest on the money held on escrow as nobody would do it, its really a scratch your own itch community -- do we really want people around who would rather pay for support than learn to do it themselves?

Dusty

AngryKoala · 2009-06-26 02:58:55

Dusty wrote:

do we really want people around who would rather pay for support than learn to do it themselves?

I'd rather pay money to specifically get mouse button shortcuts for kwin or an efficient system wide equalizer than wait 5 years

zenlord · 2009-06-26 07:03:20

Dusty wrote:

Wow, old thread... I think the status quo since the original post has served us well so far, don't you? Developers who are motivated by quality instead of money will churn out better work. Devs that don't work anymore don't have any incentive to hang around and do half-ass stuff instead of passing it off to someone more motivated.
I have considered writing a bounty system, not into the main site, but as a side project, where people can post money in escrow and people, (anyone: devs, community, microsoft employees) can complete the request. I decided the primary source of income would be interest on the money held on escrow as nobody would do it, its really a scratch your own itch community -- do we really want people around who would rather pay for support than learn to do it themselves?
Dusty

OK, point taken.

I myself feel comfortable writing a small/average PHP-script and bash scripting is something I want to learn to make my life easier - that means that it takes one hell of a lot of time before I can resolve 'my own bugs' in Perl, Python, GTK, or even C. Don't get me wrong: I would love to be able to do just that, but at this moment that is nog possible, so I wouldn't mind paying $5 for an annoyance or $20 to get rid of a nasty bug.

Most bugs will not have a bounty, some bugs will have a minor bounty because 1 guy is affected by it and a few bugs will have a nice reward because several people have contributed to that bounty.

You're right from a dev POV that you would rather have motivated devs instead of people hanging around and producing bad quality patches - I'm just looking from it from a user POV who wants to contribute, other than try to answer some people with supposedly low level questions in the forums. Anyway: I'll make a donation to 'the Arch cause'!

ataraxia · 2009-06-27 00:02:32

I also would be interested in donating, but only if I don't have to use PayPal, which I won't use for any reason.

loudtiger · 2009-06-30 14:19:06

where does the money from the schwag shop go to? just curious. i'm thinking about buying a few things.

Peasantoid · 2009-06-30 14:22:30

AngryKoala wrote:

I'd rather pay money to specifically get mouse button shortcuts for kwin

Methinks you'd have to pay the kwin/KDE developers for that — it's not an Arch project.

Ranguvar · 2009-06-30 14:54:53

Peasantoid wrote:

AngryKoala wrote:
I'd rather pay money to specifically get mouse button shortcuts for kwin
Methinks you'd have to pay the kwin/KDE developers for that — it's not an Arch project.

I believe he was just giving an example of where this could be useful

Arch Linux

#51 2009-06-25 07:44:29

Re: Pay for Arch?

#52 2009-06-25 10:30:03

Re: Pay for Arch?

#53 2009-06-25 11:48:07

Re: Pay for Arch?

#54 2009-06-25 18:35:13

Re: Pay for Arch?

#55 2009-06-26 00:29:48

Re: Pay for Arch?

#56 2009-06-26 02:37:39

Re: Pay for Arch?

#57 2009-06-26 02:58:55

Re: Pay for Arch?

#58 2009-06-26 07:03:20

Re: Pay for Arch?

#59 2009-06-27 00:02:32

Re: Pay for Arch?

#60 2009-06-30 14:19:06

Re: Pay for Arch?

#61 2009-06-30 14:22:30

Re: Pay for Arch?

#62 2009-06-30 14:54:53

Re: Pay for Arch?

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