An interesting question - and, given a little experience of Internet Behaviour, one that COULD easily be used to further political arguments - so I can understand how/why people might have a tendency to shout in annoyance here at first.
Initially I thought of myself very much as a customer, pre-ordering a product for a fixed fee for delivery within a given timeframe (not an exact date, but certainly an approximate timeframe has been set). I considered an "Investor" or "Investment" in exactly the terms Wiz lays out - as in buying shares in a company, rather than buying a product.
But it's become apparent that if I view my relationship with OpenPandora purely as a customer who paid a given fee for a given product in a given timeframe, I will become disenchanted very quickly as they have not lived up to that deal. No, you can save your barbs for yourselves, it doesn't matter who is responsible or why (we could chase around THAT bush for threads and threads - as I beleive we already have, repeatedly) but I did my bit and offered up dough. OpenPandora have not delivered on their part of the deal.
So I started to think - because I REALLY don't want to view this purchase as a deal that's gone sour, and it occurred to me that we become "invested" in all sorts of things without expecting to own shares. The term has a wider meaning than the purely business sense, I was sure - with peoplke even becomming "invested" in fictional worlds such that they dislike it when a series of films, books, comics etc. cease to be produced or change tone (due to a change in author or artist, perhaps). So I thought I'd look up the definition in a couple of places, and here's some examples of what I found:
investing: the act of investing; laying out money or capital in an enterprise with the expectation of profit
That's pretty much the classic business/financial definition, though "profit" could be debated as it is not defined... e.g.
QUOTE
what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
Obviously here the term "profit" does not necessarily mean cash (and dude! The answer is THE WHOLE WORLD!!!)
the commitment of something other than money (time, energy, or effort) to a project with the expectation of some worthwhile result; "this job calls for the investment of some hard thinking"; "he made an emotional investment in the work"
Ah! THIS is the definition - more or less - that had been nagging at the back of my mind. But, well, phrased better. I think a great many of us have put in considerable more effort - even if only in the form of discussion aimed at benefitting the project - than simply stumping up the retail price of a Pandora. From this definition, I would have to call myself an "Investor" in the sense of "more than just a customer who pays his money and vanishes into the night".
the act of putting on robes or vestments
I could hardly leave that definition out, but I couldn't see a way of applying it to this situation. Unless there's an OP uniform that no-one has told me about?
invest - endow: give qualities or abilities to
invest - provide with power and authority; "They vested the council with special rights"
And so on. I love the English language - I love the way that almost any sentence, if carefully constructed, can have multiple meanings. It's hellish for people whose first language isn't English though, I assume
Sigh. Are there problems with bold too? :angry: At least in "Preview" there are
I'm going to wrap up by saying I intend to vote "Investor" - not as a financial investor in a typical business/finance sense, but as someone who has a great deal of time in addition to money tied up in this project, and plans to invest a great deal more of at least one of those (probably both) before my Pandora is replaced. I certainly FEEL invested in the project, and feel glum when we turn on each other like rabid dogs.
Ta