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To address the money issue further, the $1,000 minimum donation means the donor receives consulting services setting up and administering a node. Anyone with e

To address the money issue further, the $1,000 minimum donation means the donor receives consulting services setting up and administering a node. Anyone with experience with LAMP is able to set up their own node without paying a dime. And as for funding, I've been working on Appleseed almost full time for quite a while now (started in 2004). I've been working a full time job as well most of the time I've been doing this, so at some point, I'd like to be able to focus on this exclusively, and funding can help make that happen, which means the software will improve faster as a result.

roel_v 16y ago
Maybe off topic but I LOL at doublespeak like "$1,000 minimum donation", and the cognitive dissonance that lies at its foundation. I can just see the whole story behind it: the idealists who preach the 'software should be FREE!' mantra, the myopic hatred against software companies who (gasp) charge money for their software, the realization (after trying to make worth while software themselves) that it actually costs money to, you know, live and pay expenses, and the grasping for straws that is "let's call it a 'minimum donation, then we're not actually charging for it". Not to pick on these guys, I don't know them and for all I know they're the outlier, it's just such a cliche that it's becoming an indicator of a team that has much to learn about how the software business works.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  That's a donation, not a fee, and this isn't a business model, it's a perk for making a donation. If you look at similar projects on sites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter, that's how crowd-sourced funding works, with perks provided to people who donate (like t-shirts and servers for the Diaspora funders). As for "software should be free", the idealists have been qualifying that with "Free as in Speech, Not as in Beer" for as long as I can remember, so we're all fully aware of the material concerns required.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    Seriously, come on. A rose is a rose is a rose. "minimum donation" = fee "perk for making a donation" = services bought "crowd-sourced funding" = a bunch of customers pay for products or services. I mean I'm not being negative here or criticizing you, but let's call things like they are. Why make up fluffy feel-good terms for things for which we already have perfectly viable words? Referencing the Diaspora guys basically reinforces my point re: the inexperienced team - a bunch of kids straight out of college why manage to hype together 200k and then turn out a complete disaster after a couple of months does not a trustworthy example make.

roel_v 16y ago

Maybe off topic but I LOL at doublespeak like "$1,000 minimum donation", and the cognitive dissonance that lies at its foundation. I can just see the whole story behind it: the idealists who preach the 'software should be FREE!' mantra, the myopic hatred against software companies who (gasp) charge money for their software, the realization (after trying to make worth while software themselves) that it actually costs money to, you know, live and pay expenses, and the grasping for straws that is "let's call it a 'minimum donation, then we're not actually charging for it". Not to pick on these guys, I don't know them and for all I know they're the outlier, it's just such a cliche that it's becoming an indicator of a team that has much to learn about how the software business works.

michaelchisari 16y ago
That's a donation, not a fee, and this isn't a business model, it's a perk for making a donation. If you look at similar projects on sites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter, that's how crowd-sourced funding works, with perks provided to people who donate (like t-shirts and servers for the Diaspora funders). As for "software should be free", the idealists have been qualifying that with "Free as in Speech, Not as in Beer" for as long as I can remember, so we're all fully aware of the material concerns required.
- roel_v 16y ago
  Seriously, come on. A rose is a rose is a rose. "minimum donation" = fee "perk for making a donation" = services bought "crowd-sourced funding" = a bunch of customers pay for products or services. I mean I'm not being negative here or criticizing you, but let's call things like they are. Why make up fluffy feel-good terms for things for which we already have perfectly viable words? Referencing the Diaspora guys basically reinforces my point re: the inexperienced team - a bunch of kids straight out of college why manage to hype together 200k and then turn out a complete disaster after a couple of months does not a trustworthy example make.