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> There's currently a gaping chasm between the 35 sponsors who have supported the project on GitHub so far (thank you!!!) and the 309 poll respondents who indic

> There's currently a gaping chasm between the 35 sponsors who have supported the project on GitHub so far (thank you!!!) and the 309 poll respondents who indicated they would donate to this cause.

raybb 6y ago
Link to donate: https://github.com/sponsors/gitclear https://github.com/sponsors/gitclear
- Jnr 6y ago
  But who is that guy and how would the money be used? From his profile it doesn't seem like he is a Linux developer.
  - dastx 6y ago
    He's not, but he's going to hire a developer who can develop this. The full donation will go to said developer.
  - seltzered_ 6y ago
    I'm someone who's highly interested in this and am not a linux developer either. He's been trying to evangelize this effort for years. Not everyone has to be a developer - some of us may see better roles as funders, testers, project managers, etc.
coldpie 6y ago
Ahh, the ol' conversion funnel. Applies any time you want to separate someone from their money.
BiteCode_dev 6y ago
I answered the poll, and said I would pay $50 for this, but never received any follow up (and I think I provided my email, I usually do in polls if they give the option). Now I just realized that there is a github sponsor link, but it's recurring. I don't want recurring. I want to send $50 once.
- rkangel 6y ago
  I am in exactly the same position. Happy to donate $100 once, but mot happy to sign up to a recurring subscription.
- forbiddenlake 6y ago
  You can sign up, pay once, then cancel.
  - GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
    So many companies made unsubscribing too hard that I wouldn’t even try it with github.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      I just did this, and it's very easy. After you cancel, GH even puts up a multiple-choice "why did you cancel?" survey, and one of the options is "wanted to make a one-time donation".
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        Perhaps they should make that an official option at that point…
  - grawprog 6y ago
    Why should the onus be on me to make sure I don't pay more money than I want? I can't stand this 'just subscribe then cancel' mentality. I would like the option for a one time payment for things without having to fuck around starting and cancelling subscriptions. It's just ridiculous.
    - m463 6y ago
      > Why should the onus be on me to make sure I don't pay more money than I want? follow the money. :)
- 6y ago
trombonechamp 6y ago
The poll respondents did not indicate they would be willing to donate to the cause. They indicated they would be willing to donate to "fix it". There is a very big difference between paying to fix a problem and paying for a stranger to work on a project that may end up fixing the problem one day.
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  Honestly at this point I wouldn't care. Give me a kickstarter link with a the poll author as the champion, and I would insta send money. I can afford a few bucks to help somebody to attempt to solve the problem. I'm even ok with failure as long as it's an honest attempt.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I think a successful way to do this is Neovim's BountySource which was perfectly run, imho. There was a "if it hits $x tarruda will work on it" thing which is all I wanted.
wegs 6y ago
Well, let me put it this way. I would donate $250 to fix it. I think that's how much working support for touch, trackpad, and pen input would be worth it to me. I would donate $0 for a stranger on the internet to try to fix it themselves. I would donate $0 and advise others not to donate with an approach where there isn't even a developer driving this themselves ("Give us money, and we'll hire someone to fix it" approach), especially with the claimed problem, solution, and approaches. With open source, it's easy to find people to do the fun, modular bits (acceleration curves, palm rejection, etc.). It's hard to find people to do the plumbing and the not-fun bits. If OP were to create a pipeline which: * Supported the broad range of trackpads, tablets, styluses, etc. on the market * Did this with clean abstractions and modular drivers (NOT wrappers around wrappers around wrappers of what other people have written, but the painful work of refactoring other people's code) * Integrated with the desktop properly, potentially extending existing standards if necessary (NOT tried to replace the desktop with yet another standard no one supports) * Handled the odd-ball cases (a touchscreen, a drawing tablet, a drawing display, AND a plain old monitor are plugged into a box. What happens?) * Provided clean, simple, documented, pluggable APIs where people could tinker around with the fun stuff (anyone can make a new algorithm in Python and see it work in 5 minutes) That would solve the problem. For reference, their approach: "(1) evaluate which multi-touch features can be implemented with the least work 2) start to quantify the current nature of palm detection 3) measure how the acceleration curve of Linux touchpad compares to that of macOS. I have some ideas on how we might calibrate the acceleration curve to better match macOS, but it would be handy if anyone else has bright ideas on how they would attempt to quantify the touchpad acceleration curve on macOS (such that we can seek to match it here)." I could be wrong about all of this, but that's what it would take for ME to donate. I guess the other approach is to accomplish something yourself and establish a track record. I WILL instead donate to DIGImend, where a lone developer seems to heroically be successfully bringing tablet support to Linux. That's an example of a track record. https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?c=930980 https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?c=930980 https://liberapay.com/spbnick/donate https://liberapay.com/spbnick/donate https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spbnick https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spbnick I'm sure this will go -5, since most critical posts do, but I find critical feedback to be more important than positivisty. edit: Just donated to DIGImend.
- 6y ago
nanna 6y ago
For me the problem is that the minimum of $5 per month is just too much. I would like to see this work done, but not for $60 a year (plus fees?). I fall into the category of being alright with the state of my trackpad, so $60 is just more than I will give. Edit: I'd gladly donate $2 or $3 per month.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Damn, for $60 you can get one bangin' mouse to carry with you and problem solved.
  - nanna 6y ago
    Maybe so, but there'd still be so many problems left! And they need money too.
  - robrtsql 6y ago
    I can't use a mouse on my lap, though.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      Just out of curiosity, why do you need to do work on your lap? The posture is really bad and unhealthy. Doesn't anyone own a table for eating where you can use your laptop as well? I've been owning laptops for 12 years now and never used it on my lap. The only times I saw people use laptops on their laps is on TV.
      - myself248 6y ago
        I use my laptop on my lap or in bed all the time. I own a couple of perfectly fine mice, but the reason laptops have touchpads built into them in the first place is that they're not always well suited to mice. If I wanted a computer I could only use at a desk with a mouse, I'd have bought a desktop.
      - robrtsql 6y ago

> There's currently a gaping chasm between the 35 sponsors who have supported the project on GitHub so far (thank you!!!) and the 309 poll respondents who indicated they would donate to this cause.

raybb 6y ago

Link to donate: https://github.com/sponsors/gitclear https://github.com/sponsors/gitclear

Jnr 6y ago
But who is that guy and how would the money be used? From his profile it doesn't seem like he is a Linux developer.
- dastx 6y ago
  He's not, but he's going to hire a developer who can develop this. The full donation will go to said developer.
- seltzered_ 6y ago
  I'm someone who's highly interested in this and am not a linux developer either. He's been trying to evangelize this effort for years. Not everyone has to be a developer - some of us may see better roles as funders, testers, project managers, etc.

coldpie 6y ago

Ahh, the ol' conversion funnel. Applies any time you want to separate someone from their money.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago

I answered the poll, and said I would pay $50 for this, but never received any follow up (and I think I provided my email, I usually do in polls if they give the option). Now I just realized that there is a github sponsor link, but it's recurring. I don't want recurring. I want to send $50 once.

rkangel 6y ago
I am in exactly the same position. Happy to donate $100 once, but mot happy to sign up to a recurring subscription.
forbiddenlake 6y ago
You can sign up, pay once, then cancel.
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
  So many companies made unsubscribing too hard that I wouldn’t even try it with github.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    I just did this, and it's very easy. After you cancel, GH even puts up a multiple-choice "why did you cancel?" survey, and one of the options is "wanted to make a one-time donation".
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Perhaps they should make that an official option at that point…
- grawprog 6y ago
  Why should the onus be on me to make sure I don't pay more money than I want? I can't stand this 'just subscribe then cancel' mentality. I would like the option for a one time payment for things without having to fuck around starting and cancelling subscriptions. It's just ridiculous.
  - m463 6y ago
    > Why should the onus be on me to make sure I don't pay more money than I want? follow the money. :)
6y ago

trombonechamp 6y ago

The poll respondents did not indicate they would be willing to donate to the cause. They indicated they would be willing to donate to "fix it". There is a very big difference between paying to fix a problem and paying for a stranger to work on a project that may end up fixing the problem one day.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago
Honestly at this point I wouldn't care. Give me a kickstarter link with a the poll author as the champion, and I would insta send money. I can afford a few bucks to help somebody to attempt to solve the problem. I'm even ok with failure as long as it's an honest attempt.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  I think a successful way to do this is Neovim's BountySource which was perfectly run, imho. There was a "if it hits $x tarruda will work on it" thing which is all I wanted.

wegs 6y ago

Well, let me put it this way. I would donate $250 to fix it. I think that's how much working support for touch, trackpad, and pen input would be worth it to me. I would donate $0 for a stranger on the internet to try to fix it themselves. I would donate $0 and advise others not to donate with an approach where there isn't even a developer driving this themselves ("Give us money, and we'll hire someone to fix it" approach), especially with the claimed problem, solution, and approaches. With open source, it's easy to find people to do the fun, modular bits (acceleration curves, palm rejection, etc.). It's hard to find people to do the plumbing and the not-fun bits. If OP were to create a pipeline which: * Supported the broad range of trackpads, tablets, styluses, etc. on the market * Did this with clean abstractions and modular drivers (NOT wrappers around wrappers around wrappers of what other people have written, but the painful work of refactoring other people's code) * Integrated with the desktop properly, potentially extending existing standards if necessary (NOT tried to replace the desktop with yet another standard no one supports) * Handled the odd-ball cases (a touchscreen, a drawing tablet, a drawing display, AND a plain old monitor are plugged into a box. What happens?) * Provided clean, simple, documented, pluggable APIs where people could tinker around with the fun stuff (anyone can make a new algorithm in Python and see it work in 5 minutes) That would solve the problem. For reference, their approach: "(1) evaluate which multi-touch features can be implemented with the least work 2) start to quantify the current nature of palm detection 3) measure how the acceleration curve of Linux touchpad compares to that of macOS. I have some ideas on how we might calibrate the acceleration curve to better match macOS, but it would be handy if anyone else has bright ideas on how they would attempt to quantify the touchpad acceleration curve on macOS (such that we can seek to match it here)." I could be wrong about all of this, but that's what it would take for ME to donate. I guess the other approach is to accomplish something yourself and establish a track record. I WILL instead donate to DIGImend, where a lone developer seems to heroically be successfully bringing tablet support to Linux. That's an example of a track record. https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?c=930980 https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?c=930980 https://liberapay.com/spbnick/donate https://liberapay.com/spbnick/donate https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spbnick https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spbnick I'm sure this will go -5, since most critical posts do, but I find critical feedback to be more important than positivisty. edit: Just donated to DIGImend.

6y ago

nanna 6y ago

For me the problem is that the minimum of $5 per month is just too much. I would like to see this work done, but not for $60 a year (plus fees?). I fall into the category of being alright with the state of my trackpad, so $60 is just more than I will give. Edit: I'd gladly donate $2 or $3 per month.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Damn, for $60 you can get one bangin' mouse to carry with you and problem solved.
- nanna 6y ago
  Maybe so, but there'd still be so many problems left! And they need money too.
- robrtsql 6y ago
  I can't use a mouse on my lap, though.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    Just out of curiosity, why do you need to do work on your lap? The posture is really bad and unhealthy. Doesn't anyone own a table for eating where you can use your laptop as well? I've been owning laptops for 12 years now and never used it on my lap. The only times I saw people use laptops on their laps is on TV.
    - myself248 6y ago
      I use my laptop on my lap or in bed all the time. I own a couple of perfectly fine mice, but the reason laptops have touchpads built into them in the first place is that they're not always well suited to mice. If I wanted a computer I could only use at a desk with a mouse, I'd have bought a desktop.
    - robrtsql 6y ago