Kickstarter Campaign to fund a programmer?

[tschak909]

I nominally make a lot more than that, per year, yes. This would be a pay cut to do what I love, and to give back to all of you, 24-7.

-Thom

[Farmboy]

I'd kick in a $100

[Crumble]

Maybe you could find people that want extravagant smart home setups.  Let them pay you to build it from the ground up(most rich people love having things they think nobody else does).  Then give it to us for free   Then you could have support funding and people asking you questions about stuff all the time and get payed for it(lackies doing most of the work, ME! ME!).  User error is the biggest money maker.

[G.I.R.]

+ 100$
great project!

[davegravy]

Maybe you could find people that want extravagant smart home setups.  Let them pay you to build it from the ground up(most rich people love having things they think nobody else does).  Then give it to us for free   Then you could have support funding and people asking you questions about stuff all the time and get payed for it(lackies doing most of the work, ME! ME!).  User error is the biggest money maker.

Installers who use Crestron and AMX already have the rich market cornered.

[tschak909]

Pretty much, and aligning with builders and or architects and or realtors is a no-pass, because "We are never sure what the customer actually wants, so we just punt in that area."

Trust me, I know some of you think you're reeeeallly clever with these thoughts, but I've already been through this over the last 20 or so years.

-Thom

[Esperanto]

My suggestion is still aim low to get everybody to support. I don't know how many lmce user there are but you could think of some kind of subscription model also (like here: http://community.ardour.org/community ).

I am sure everybody would love to have you 24/7 on lmce and everybody is willing to spend a few bucks on a better system. However I think it needs to be clear what gets done.

Did you also discuss with dianemo/totallymaxed? I assume they also are willing to pay a few bucks on a regular basis to get you coding 24/7 on lmce. That would also boost their product......

[davegravy]

A couple thoughts:

1) In the ~5 years I've been following this project I've seen a LOT of faces come and go. I don't know if these are mostly people that get their systems running and the cast off until they hit a problem and come back for help, or mostly people who get frustrated and leave. I don't know what the distribution is.

But it's possible that the number of users that would support such a campaign is larger than the active number of users currently on this forum - IF you can somehow reach them.

2) Pitch the campaign not as a list of upgrades to the existing system but as a Full Software Solution. The current LMCE version would be referred to as a "proof of concept" (although internally the team knows it is so much more). This would make the campaign palatable to people that haven't ever HEARD of LMCE (i.e an audience that's orders of magnitude larger than the current community).

[deepB]

I would be happy to chime in.

but I guess it would be a good idea to start by making a roadmap. To see what would really be done. Or am I just to blind to find it?

Best regards
Daniel

[Crumble]

One of the things i have noticed with LMCE.  If i mention the distro to someone i do not know, but the topic of linux comes up.  They will ask me right away "you must be a big linux buff?".  That tells me two things.  People who are interested in linux find this distro advanced.  They are aware of it and A. did not have the time or inclination to use it.  B.  found the whole concept too complex.  C. lazy.  Lets face it, if  you know linux and dont use this distro, why!  It is fun, super useful, and can be a great hobby and learning experience.  My reasoning is the documentation is lacking.  I remember when I started using LMCE, there were like 15 articles on each problem that arose for me.  There are WAY fewer issues these days but the documentation is just not there like it used to be. Perfect example, vdpau.  If I am setting up an nvidia card where do i put my vdpau settings.  Was easy to find that vdpau was an option for LMCE but finding where to set it for a newbie would take a while.  Then if you read about nvidia cards the new drivers are made to work best with opengl for hardware acceleration.  So opengl and vdpau for deinterlace seem to work best for me(I will document this, just figured it out).  My point is, us as users need to start documenting everything we learn about LMCE(as you would to a beginner of linux).  I think this will help the community grow tremendously.  Then guru's like tschack can do what they love, and we all benefit.  Tschack I will throw in a hundred bucks.  I will promote this thread around different forums for ya too.  See a lot of LMCE users on forums like smarthome.com and such.

[Esperanto]

Both davegravy and Crumble make some good points there which makes me wonder:

- How much work would it be to get totally rid of Pluto and have lmce GPLed or is that still lightyears away?

That would be valuable for all parties. I think the clarity will help a lot. We might get more interest from companies and it would be easier to sell complete systems. (you might even consider offering that in the kickstarter). That would actually make sense. If you can supply a relatively cheap out of the box pnp experience the target group would be much larger. The cheaper the hardware (as long as it does properly what it needs to do) the more people can contribute to the software(development).

[Marie.O]

Do I think that having Thom dedicate his worktime on LinuxMCE for a year? Absolutely. Do I think that a kickstarter campaign will attract even 10% of Thom's desired goal? Not in a million years.

Let's face it: The people who are using LinuxMCE these days are mainly cheapskates. They use it cause it is free as in beer. Some are here, cause they think they can make a quick buck out of it for clients.

[Esperanto]

Let's face it: The people who are using LinuxMCE these days are mainly cheapskates. They use it cause it is free as in beer. Some are here, cause they think they can make a quick buck out of it for clients.

hence my suggestion to attract more people willing to spend some money on the software.

Regarding the current users: how many active installs are there? Is that visible in the statistics somewhere?

[davegravy]

Do I think that having Thom dedicate his worktime on LinuxMCE for a year? Absolutely. Do I think that a kickstarter campaign will attract even 10% of Thom's desired goal? Not in a million years.

Let's face it: The people who are using LinuxMCE these days are mainly cheapskates. They use it cause it is free as in beer. Some are here, cause they think they can make a quick buck out of it for clients.

But many of those same cheapskates I bet would pay for a commercial closed source product (IF it existed) with all the polish and finesse that companies with capital could develop. Pluto was ahead of it's time. I think the potential for something like LinuxMCE has grown massively in the last 5 years and none of the major players have stepped in to fill it...yet.

[Techstyle]

I would love Thom to work for LMCE full time and will contribute.  Somebody mentioned a subscription model.  I would think of it more as a club membership - pledges of $100 sound great (and are) but would anybody miss $5-10 per week?

Equally, Thom has just been working on a contract for my company for the last 6-12 months that has just finished.  He did a great job, if your company has any contract work that can be done remotely, then throw him a line!!