Developer Fund

[sindbad]

The only problem with bounties is that some of the things that will be requested are trivial. Like Pidgin and Firefox 3.

Maybe an elected committee that decides how hard to make or useful a piece of software is could work.

 

[moshansky]

I think a sort of bidding/donating system would be awesome. Wherein one can donate money towards a specific port and then when a developer completes the software they can collect the money donated for the port.

 

[Pleng]

[boring_stuff]
Not so. If money goes to the developers it would be classed as income and taxable. If it is paid by Pandora devs company then they could be liable for paying income tax and National Insurance. Unless the app developer is a company then they would be liable.
If you add to the 'cost' of a VATable, eg postage, then although postage is VAT free the item isn't so VAT is charged on the whole amount.
Now with http://www.gp32x.de/board/style_images/1/...ages/italic.gif
VAT at 17.5% and income tax at 22%+, 40%+ of proceeds could disappear in tax. Because of the centralised nature of the proposal the tax man is more likely to be interested than say 200 developers having a donate button.
[/boring_stuff]
Now, sorry for being boring but it could be important if the proposal goes ahead - I certainly don't want Craig and co to have grief they could do without.




Income tax is precicely that. It's based in INCOME, not turnover. If money goes out the door then it is not taxable.

If my business purchases a new printer, a new set of cartridges, or an A4 file to keep my accounts in, I do not pay tax on the money I've spent on the items

If my business decides to make a donation to charity, no ta is paid on the charitable donation

If my business pay a 3rd party developer to develop an application, the amount I pay to him can be written off and I will not pay tax on this outgoing. It is not my responsibility to ensure that the said developer is declaring his income to the inland revenue. That is the responsibility of the developer himself.

VAT I've never had to deal with so I can't comment on that but I'd imagine the system is similar.

 

[zxcel]

1) As a programmer,I think bounty or something like, may stimulate me to write something. But I'm not sure.
2) As a buyer of device, I don't like the idea that I have to pay for access to beta-area-or-whatever.

I don't know what is it, I don't know if I need it or not. May be I don't want to pay, but I think "hmmm,who knows, may be once i will need that beta area, so that crafty guys force me to pay". So I feel bad thinking about it.



Hence, I think this $20-donation must be 1)on voluntary basis 2)without any beta-areas or something.

You may explain to the buyers: "guys, you may pay and you may not. If you will pay, you will not receive anything (may be some funny avatar in forum only). But we all want more software for pandora, so its in our's interests"

 

[gruso]

You may explain to the buyers: "guys, you may pay and you may not. If you will pay, you will not receive anything (may be some funny avatar in forum only). But we all want more software for pandora, so its in our's interests"

Agreed, and I'm sure something like that will be in place. That's what this idea is about after all, and I'm sure everyone would agree that attracting a broad section of devs to the platform is in our best interests! As long as the whole process is transparent, and well managed.

Of course, people will always have the option to throw a Paypal donation directly to the dev(s) of their choice. And devs have the option of working outside the funding pool, and releasing their betas to everyone.

 

[yosh64]

hey

I haven't read all the posts yet.

Anyhows I think if anyone made something expecting to get $$$ then I think they are looking for trouble. To me it would just be an incentive to spend some extra time, but I certainly wouldn't expect anything.

Obviously everyone has different opinions on who deserves what, so I think you will need several different criterias for distributing awards.

I certainly hope people don't think of this as a way to get developers to develop what they want, rather I see this as a great incentive for developers to spend more time and enhance the quality of their software.

I was thinking maybe you can have quaterly events. I dunno if this would be the best approach, but just something I thought of.

So you could have awards of different criterias (maybe you could post information about each criteria).

Like the most popular software award.
The most addictive software award.
The most original game award.
The openpandora award (the best opensource prog of the year).
and whatever else.

Hmm, I guess the community could nominate software for each category? and have a select few or whatever decide the 1st/2nd/3rd or whatever, but I dunno.

Anyhows just a thought.

cyas

 

[Tashi]

I like to pay additional 20$ for the Devs.

 

[lokiase]

I like the idea and I´ll certainly spend the money.

Although it may not be spend on the development of my favourite XY-application/XY-emulator, I see the big advantage in general and trust in the knowledge of the distributors which projects are worth the money.
Maybe some projects profit from my money I would never have thought of supporting.

Starting aid for pandora developers for a "small" price ......yeah I like it.

 

[gruso]

Maybe some projects profit from my money I would never have thought of supporting.
Indeed, and I must admit that before reading this thread I'd barely considered the importance of that. Many people (probably not old schoolers from this community, but many newcomers) might be willing to donate for X emulator or Y port, without considering the work that goes into drivers and other "invisible" things that we tend to take for granted.

 

[sm1988]

We should have developer day too I would like to know a little bit about the guys behind all the apps and ports.

 

[Guyfawkes]

A great idea none theless i do agree with guyfawkes that emu authors will get the greater feedback as that has happened on every homebrew console so far.

No one has told me why that's a bad thing, as long as no one category don't get all the goods.



It is not a bad thing to have loads of emulators but to me it seems all people are interested in is emulators and ports of existing software. The GP32 and GP2X are seen as emulation devices and from what I have been reading on the pandora forums it seems to be going the same way with people asking what can be emulated and ported.

As a developer, it doesn't really inspire me to create a game when the majority of the users are just interested in emulators and ports. As with the GP32 and GP2X we have a great open source system and we should be promoting the fact that anyone can start creating games which have a responsive audience. Unfortunately the latter doesn't seem to happen on a large scale when compared to the feedback emulators or ports get for example.

This is something I have been trying to promote for some time, especially with including a developers start up guide in the gp2x user manual. I have seen quite a few posts with people who are interested in coding because of the user manual. Like I mentioned we should really be promoting original homebrew games and try to get the emulator and port fan base more involved in trying the original games, giving feedback etc.


Now back on topic I think the developers fund is a good idea and I hope that it is popular. I have read a few comments about people not donating as they feel they are being forced into donating in order to try beta versions. I agree it is a little sneaky but there should be some kind of reward for donating your hard earned money to those people who in the majority of cases spend far too much of their time working on free software.

The expected donated money per software does not even begin to pay for the time devs spend working on software. If it was a paid job we would be screaming slave labour! Granted most devs code as an hobby which is what I do. But if you add up the hours it takes to complete an original game it is quite amazing, an hour or two each day for several months really adds up! I see the donations more as a way of saying thanks for the software, I have probably received around $90 (excluding the coding compo prize) in donations and spent it on a well earned pint of beer and the rest on hardware for future coding.

The thing is, it is good to give back to the community, not necessarily by way of donating money, not everyone can afford to donate which is fair enough. So if you do not wish to donate I would suggest to be more involved with the development of software. Try software you wouldn't normally use and give suggestions to improve the game or application. Again, speaking as a developer we really enjoy receiving feedback and for me now it is more important than donations as it means people are interested in what we are creating, to fix bugs/make the software easier to use and most importantly to get new ideas.

This is what made the GP32, GP2X and very likely the Pandora the most organised and friendly console scenes to be involved in.

 

[jimid2]

What's to stop anyone from donating to a particular developer even if they contribute to the Pandora Developer Fund? I intend to pony up $20 for the fund - it sounds like a good idea, and I trust that Craig & Co. will manage it responsibly - but that won't stop me from tossing a beer money at my fave devs from time to time... Besides, the beta area sounds like fun...

Now, the fact that I think that the folks behind Pandora will manage the Developer Fund responsibly does not mean that I think they will necessarily manage it in a manner that I would agree with; it means that I trust that they have a better grasp of the over-all picture than I do, and I'm willing to give them $20 to distribute as they see fit in the best interests of the community. It's an act of trust really.

Anyway, it irks me when a generally good idea is thrown out and all the Chicken Littles come flying out of the hen house screeching that the sky is falling (Munich Beer Hall, indeed!)... the donation is VOLUNTARY, so I say run with it and lets see where it goes... I think it's a good idea for a good cause with a good incentive, and screw the nay-sayers!

 

[sold]

EDIT: I had written a rather lengthy post about how I originally thought the fund was a bad idea. Thought about it some more and decided to delete it as I changed my mind.

But I wonder if maybe its a better idea to allow devs to accept donations through their own site FIRST. Maybe the pandora donation system can assist those who don't have websites of their own but are contributing to the scene, and act as a referral list for those devs who have their own site and donation system. That way, devs without the facility dont miss out on donations, and the better organised devs can see the community run fund as a "bonus"

 

[BaDToaD]

It really is quite simple:

A] I trust Craig and Co' to manage the fund in a sensible manner so I'll donate to the fund.

B] I would rather donate to specific devs myself so I won't donate to the fund.

C] I trust Craig and Co' to manage the fund but I'll donate to specific devs myself also.

Choose an Option and stop fretting.

Oh and just for info I'll go for option C as I've been kicking around on these forums long enough to know that Craig, Ed etc are decent blokes who have the community interests at heart. And if they make a fat wodge of cash from the Pandora then good luck to them.

 

[sold]

I hope craig & co make a gigantic wad of cash also.

 

[ashadocat]

agreed. also, although i'm against the closed beta idea, i'd still donate and i definatly wouldn't be pissed off by it or anything.

 

[Joppu]

So, what kind of developers will be rewarded? Like do you get rewarded for making like a theme/skin for pandora?

 

[yosh64]

hey

Put it this way, if there was a beta system then I would probably use it, otherwise I probably wouldn't even bother releasing a beta version or whatever. Hmm, and if someone was originally gonna release a beta version then there is nothing stopping them from hosting it themselves.

So in other words you can't complain about the beta system not being free, as I doubt people would even bother releasing a beta version without it in the first place, and if they were going to release a public beta version in the first place then they would probably host it on their own website also.

cyas

 

[DisgruntleElf]

Having bounty's on certain applications may be ILLEGAL. Many open source applications strictly say NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE! Putting a cash bounty on such an application violates this agreement and is illegal.
One could argue that a direct donation to a developer to port such an application is for his time however if there is a developers fund with a cash bounty for this such application then that maybe looked on as purchasing a product and that is illegal and violiates the software agreement.
If there is a developers fund then it should only be set aside for original titles, emulators, homebrew etc... and not ports. Donations to ports should be done directly to the developer to avoid breaking the law.

 

[sindbad]

Not many, some.