On 20-9-2014 22:59, Martin Owens wrote:
I've here at Free Software Day (Boston) and have just completed a panel on the economics of Free Software development. Something which came up and something I want to have a serious discussion about is the implementation of an opportunity to donate screen like libreOffice:
http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/deb-x86_64/4.3.1/en-US/LibreOffice_4.3...
If one clicks on this link, it waits a few seconds and gives you the file. But as well as the file it also offers you an opportunity to donate/contribute to the project.
I have seen this too, and personally was quite annoyed by it. Just now I tried again, and was less annoyed. If we present it well, I think I can live with it. I feel we have to be very careful in too aggressively promoting donations, avoiding any misunderstandings with our users.
I'd like to implement this for inkscape.org but it would have to be blessed by the community since other developers are users may have valid concerns which should be taken into account with this format.
Things I'm thinking about:
- Making sure we have suggested amounts
- Offering something in return? Maybe offer an ability to buy swag?
I am very much against a "quid-pro-quo" donation thing. I think it would be awesome if we have a shop where people can buy mugs, t-shirts, etc., and for that I would not be opposed to including a small donation per item. But that is very different from offering something in return for a donation.
- Have an invitation to contribute other things. Time, bug tracking etc?
Not a bad idea. Seems good to make people more aware of the possibility of providing bug reports / feedback.
- Give donators a badge on their website user?
I do not fully understand. You mean a badge on their inkscape.org user profile page?
- Johan