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Android is open. That's why I have my Samsung Galaxy S, my Nexus One and my Sapphire.
I have these phones because the open community can do better than the professionals, and I am proud to be a member of a community that has recently hacked Froyo onto the G1, Android2HD2 (and other Winmo devices), created great skins and themes, rooted almost every droid to date, hacked google navigation to work in other countries etc etc etc.
There is amazing work being done is this community.
Kingklick was able to put out a lot of ROMs which satisfied a lot of people. Contributors to Cyanogenmod (disclaimer. notably not Cyanogen himself) and others (fans and friends - disclaimer. note lack of word fanboys - of cyanogenmod, disclaimer. plus some others too) have flamed and flamed away about Kangklick (notably via twitter - I have stopped following any of those jerks that clogged up my feeds with what could've - screw that - should've been settled MUCH more privately..I followed you guys for dev news or the occasional interesting insight into your real life, not your petty bickering, but you have every right to post what you like...hence why I stopped following you all, I didn't flame you...note 'bigger man').
Rule 12 of XDArules clearly states that using the work of others must be done with permission, independent of whether it is open source or not. If this is not upheld then the post will be bought down, it does not say the user will be banned. I would understand the formality of taking the post down and requesting Kingklick reposts the ROM with due credit, but I believe - note believe...implies opinion - that moderators may have been influenced by pressure from other (high ranking, public eye) members and thus did not adhere to normal or just (I do not know if not giving creds is normally treated in this way, but you will discover I believe it shouldn't be) protacol. Kingklick broke the rules of XDA, but then again I see his banning as the least contentious issue here.
I believe that members of the XDA community in the public eye (ie with large Twitter follower base) due to their work via XDA (no matter what you say, cyanogenmod may be based at its own domain, but it still posts at XDA to maintain its public profile and feed of the massive XDA userbase, and is hence in part bound by this) have a responsibility to follow the rules of XDA on XDA rules and disputes. I do not think this is something which can be policed ('I'm banning you Wes for Trolling Kingklick...on Twitter'... not gonna work) but I think it is a moral obligation (anyone that thinks the internet is not bound by morality should take a reality check...the reason why we have open source is essentially ethics).
Do we give credit to Linus Torvalds every time we distribute linux kernels or work to do with linux? Do we give credit to those that helped him create this base? Do we give credit to Google for creating Android? HTC? Our carriers? Martin Cooper for inventing the mobile phone and cell networks? Time Berners-Lee for inventing the internet, giving rise to this forum, Google and thus the Phones/Devices we love and use? The fact is we don't give credit where due (although you may say its obscure to thank these people, they DO deserve our thanks). None of the ROM chefs/coders give all credit where due, but a lot do in part, with those directly involved. But who still thanks the original rooters?
Kingklick has been declared a copier by the jury...I haven't delved through the evidence to confirm this...but shouldn't we be much more relaxed about copying in general? All users should be open about their work with Android, but they are not. If kingklick based a build off Cyanongenmod, and gave due credit for that, he would be called unoriginal, despite his attempts to make improvements. I also believe that there should be transparency, a log of all complaints of interest and the community told in a statement from the mods why someone was banned...at least in part (keeping gory details to themselves thank you very much).
Donations are generally given by 'end-users'...noobs who can flash and maybe do some work on the builds but their contributions are limited. End users generally want user experience, and reward devs with commendation and donations. If kingklick does work on a build which satisfies more users and he hence gets donations, is that stealing donations? No. The original dev works on an open source project knowing that their work is open, but the end user can reward as he/she likes. Perhaps kingklick developed his following due to his branding...he did always use words like FAST and STABLE and SMOOTH, but Apple do the same and they're not banned from trading despite the hyperbole.
I do not doubt that a lot of devs thanks fellow devs with donations. Cyanogen is well known for donating, as is kingklick, however a lot of donations come from end users, and if kingklick replaces a few files using winrar (something which I generally contest, I believe kingklick does a lot of great work) and that satisfies more end users by being fast and stable and smooth (or perceived as being so thanks to branding) then he can get donations for that, they are a gesture of satisfaction and goodwill.
Kingklick was immoral by not giving true credit, however I believe that he could have been warned and asked to give credit once he got back from his night out (whether that excuse, or what ever his actual excuse was, was true).
I also laugh at the accusation that kingklick does not fill a niche within the 'open'/'free' community. This should not result in grudges and flame wars, whether it is true or not. Kingklick did fill a niche in my opinion: reviewers (and consumers) see vanilla android as being sterile. Hell it is sterile, and it's never going to be as successful as others if it doesn't sort this out. Cyanogenmod and other big names are based off this sterile form of Android, but they don't delve into Sense UI and other alternative skins, mainly due to preferences or copyright problems etc, not that that stops them with other things. Kingklick did work with these and he filled his niche by delivering great, fast, usable roms of these whilst others sneered at them for being inefficient coding or whatever...geeky snobbery.
Kingklick also delivered various fixes and things which other groups did not. I won't list all of these and I am sure representatives of Cyanogenmob et al will say 'we were gonna fix these issues anyways' or 'that's redundant' or 'that was patchy code', but kingklick has contributed. Obviously we have to hold ethics above output, we can not say that 'his holiness' (inteneded to mock those who believe cyanogen alone is a god, not cyanogen himself) Cyanogen's contributions to android exempt him from following conduct, but we do a great job of driving away good developers with flaming and telling tales. Perhaps you'll say kingklick was not a good developer, Drizzy, even Haykuro etc etc, but I only flashed Cyanogenmod on my Nexus once and I didn't like it for various reasons (personal preference yada yada) but I kept going back for more kingklick...whether that's perceived speed and branding etc or just satisfaction.
King's desire roms are great, but we never mobbed, trolled and banned the poor guy for not giving creds to HTC. Surely the morality of our community using software like Rosie on the Nexus is more ethically questionable than a fellow member of XDA's work, since HTC is a firm which employs people. I bought a Nexus over the Desire because I knew I could still have Sense and a bigger dev community, however the cost included in the Desire which goes to the developers of Sense is hence forgone (perhaps indeirectly, I don;t know HTC internal funding); therefore I have - and anyone who has ever flashed a Sense ROM or devved with Sense - indirectly caused loss of welfare for people who rely of developing as their source of income, tehir families, communities and economies. Surely that is less ethical than not saying thank you, but XDA has no problem with that. Perhaps it is too small to notice, but it will have an indirect impact nonetheless.
Yes kingklick should've said his please and thank you, but I think it's community hyped double standards, pretensical courtesy (not that I wouldn't give creds, it's just that pleases and thank yous are nice, but not actually useful). A wise man once said 'there is no threshold for immorality', just because kingklick did a larger 'crime' than the rest of the community in not giving his thanks out, that does not exempt the other rule breakers (ie everyone), it just means their punishment should be less severe...we choose to ignore it because it's less direct or forgotten about.
In conclusion, I think we should start a 'contributors to Android' part of XDA, added to by mods or specifically appointed members of the community (like the portal). This could be informative and could mean that forgotten about contributors could not be forgotten, but their contributions immortalised in the open community of Android. Even if the contributions become redundant, they are the foundations for the next chapter in the Android story.
Finally. www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is a very good read..and think about what AOSP stands for (I'll give you a clue...Android Open Source Project!). Can you steal what is open? What right have others to dictate what can and cannot be distributed in the open aspects of Android code (ie the underlying OS and vanilla UI...I'm not confused with Apps). Perhaps kingklick was guilty of plagiarism? But so is anyone that claims they worked really hard in that kernel without crediting Linus and leaving a donation link to his family or favourite charitable causes. Anyone that says I've reworked the UI without giving credits to The Astonishing Tribe for the original Android concepts which all UIs are based off...
Android is closed, that's why I question this 'community'.
I am not proud to be a member of this 'community'...right now.
Ps. Cyanogenmob was originally a typo (using words like mobbed in my piece...Freudian slip on the keyboard rather than fat finger syndrome)...but I kept it in as I thought it was funny...the Cyogenmob should replace team douche IMHO!
Pps. Originally posted in Android Dev general but moved here as its Nexus dev themed!
im proud of myself for actually completing this reading haha. interesting read though.
cheddie said:
im proud of myself for actually completing this reading haha. interesting read though.
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Im more proud of you for successfully quoting the entire thing...I might submit it for my dissertation next year
HazzBazz said:
Im more proud of you for successfully quoting the entire thing...I might submit it for my dissertation next year
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hahah thanks for bringing that to my attention. had to edit it lol
To be fair I posted the god darn epic rant/essay/post...my bad !
HazzBazz said:
To be fair I posted the god darn epic rant/essay/post...my bad !
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No, I posted it! I worked long and hard last week to write it out. I am accepting donations to cover my time spent though.
All this happens because altruism is evil in the sense that it is a lie. Altruists demand payment too, in the form of recognition, appreciation, respect, reputation, and all these similar thirst for prestige.
In NOT giving recognition to comrades In arms who share a common need for prestige, it is theft among kin, robbing prestige.
Prestige is indeed a rotten currency.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Touche...topical. Doesn't really do anything against my points, I am saying kingklick is guilty among many but they are appeased because they haven't got flames burning them. I do believe that kingklick should always give credit where due.
caysman said:
All this happens because altruism is evil in the sense that it is a lie. Altruists demand payment too, in the form of recognition, appreciation, respect, reputation, and all these similar thirst for prestige.
In NOT giving recognition to comrades In arms who share a common need for prestige, it is theft among kin, robbing prestige.
Prestige is indeed a rotten currency.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
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Good point...the fact is cyanogenmod wouldn't be as big with as many great ethusiastic devs without the praise it got...but is that a fair compromise for contributions...
I really think that the issue is the same as black droid. The Problem isn't that king copied the rom and redistributed it. The problem is that he did so claiming that it was his work based off of CM. When in reality he downloaded a a finished copy of CM, compiled by the CM team, and then changed a few lines the build.prop, renamed it and asked for donations. I personally can't see how that is helping the community at all. I really don't care about King one way or the other but I do think that the people who do the work should get credit for it. They spend countless hours writing code for us to have for FREE. Code you yourself says is better than what google puts out. They do this in their spare time and ask for nothing but recognition. You think that is wrong? I am amazed by this. Really I am.
HazzBazz said:
Good point...the fact is cyanogenmod wouldn't be as big with as many great ethusiastic devs without the praise it got...but is that a fair compromise for contributions...
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Don't misunderstand me. Payment is due, for sure, and payment makes our world go round, but I do wish it were not in the form of mousy prestige, rotten evil currency that it is. Money is a much better choice, but prestige seekers pretend to loathe $ probably because $ is less ambiguous.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
They do this in their spare time and ask for nothing but recognition. You think that is wrong? I am amazed by this. Really I am.
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But they do not explicitly ask for recognition do they? Even the great cyanogen does not do that, because once they impose recognition expressly as a mode of payment you would recognize that their asking for your adulation and love would seen a more demanding payment than asking for cash.
And also the inconvenience of the prestige seekers being more easily mistaken for all the money grabbing corporations which they demonize.
I'd make it clear that I have not wanted anything other than cyanogen's roms during my g1 days, and adulation I'd gladly pay, plus I have donated in money.
These guys made android exciting and formed PART of the inspiration for the paid android developers. It is unfortunate that the society's misconception of altruism as ' good' destroyed a lot of the language required to denounce it as the evil it actually is.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Gr8gorilla said:
I really think that the issue is the same as black droid. The Problem isn't that king copied the rom and redistributed it. The problem is that he did so claiming that it was his work based off of CM. When in reality he downloaded a a finished copy of CM, compiled by the CM team, and then changed a few lines the build.prop, renamed it and asked for donations. I personally can't see how that is helping the community at all. I really don't care about King one way or the other but I do think that the people who do the work should get credit for it. They spend countless hours writing code for us to have for FREE. Code you yourself says is better than what google puts out. They do this in their spare time and ask for nothing but recognition. You think that is wrong? I am amazed by this. Really I am.
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it was actually jubehs rom he did that with.....
@OP, Omitting credit and stealing are completely different things. kk downloaded jubehs rom and changed 5-10 files and claimed it as his own. when confronted with this, kk said he compiled it himself even though the evidence overwhelmingly pointed at the other direction. He claimed to have built it from asop, when all he did was take someones rom and change a few files. if he said he "cooked" the rom from another (even without saying who) he would have been ok. But he continued to lie after he was caught which is probably why the ban hammer was dropped.
Most of this plus the damning evidence is located in the g1 section.
Also, android does not follow the GNU licensing, it follows apache, and by default, the devs who release their material here are also released under apache. Apache allows people to see the source so they can better understand it to develop, but people who use the source to develop something from it are not required to open source their works. they are also allow to put their own terms which would include giving proper credit.
AFAIK xda mods actually work together to decide on what to do with offenders. i know thats what they did for the wrecking crew (though some mods were less fair than others -_- )
PS: i havent used cyanogen mod since like 3.6.8 before the C&D lol
The sad fact is, it takes money to live in the world today. A lot of these programmers make good money 9-5 at their day jobs. The average computer engineer spends about 100,000 dollars going to college then makes about 60-70k per year after. This is working on a salary basis probably putting 40-60 hours per week. After that they spend another 20+ writing code for us because they like to. I can completely understand the devs wanting someone who copied and renamed their work to be banned.
That would be like you taking Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire, Calling it Circle of Fire and trying to sell it as your own. You would get sued, etc. Come on people how can you defend this guy, come on really?
Tl,dr the OP.
flybyme said:
Omitting credit and stealing are completely different things. kk downloaded jubehs rom and changed 5-10 files and claimed it as his own. when confronted with this, kk said he compiled it himself even though the evidence overwhelmingly pointed at the other direction. He claimed to have built it from asop, when all he did was take someones rom and change a few files. if he said he "cooked" the rom from another (even without saying who) he would have been ok. But he continued to lie after he was caught which is probably why the ban hammer was dropped.
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If this is true, he got what he deserved. I had a similar thing happen when I wrote a script for the iphone which gets about 75-100 downloads a day. Someone from a forum put their name on it, posted it saying they were up all night writing it and put a donation link at the bottom of their post.
When confronted, they lied and said it didn't work so they rewrote it, but a simple comparison showed the only changes made was to echo commands which displayed the author's name and some text about how to run it. They also had no clue how it worked and gave bad advice about how to use it, and there were a lot of people on that forum using it, having problems and asking questions.
I didn't really care, and I never got a penny for my work, but it forced me to think about it, and what I came up with was: what use is there in having that kind of thing around? They aren't contributing or advancing ideas, they're confusing them and possibly screwing things up.
The douche that stole my script went from "moderator" to "supermoderator" at that site. If that was your site, why would you even want to keep him around? I'm not a banhammer kinda guy, but there's no upside to allowing things like that to continue.
Im no developer, but i do see both sides of the story. But I mean this is no way to act.
[email protected] please tell your teamdouche to grow up. We all know it was someone in it that just made that name
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kingklick92
whoever made that account with MY name haha ur f****g retarded, Ill see you in court. You distribuuted MY name
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kingklick92
whether you were in the right or not.
I think credit should just be given when you use someones work just like you would want the same for your work.
Delete if not acceptable.
Oh for ****'s sake.
OP, you're being a white-knighting ninny. KK got what he deserved: "open-source" doesn't mean an eradication of common courtesy--and crediting is common courtesy. You're trying to weasel around "blah blah why don't we credit HTC and Google" which is sheer, utter, retarded straw man. We know who developed Android by implication unless you live under a rock. Not so with specific individual community contributions.
Besides, what did KK even do? All I saw in the N1 development section from him was ROMs based off other people's work slightly modified, or rubbish that never worked like his attempt to port Blur. I say good riddance. The fact that he managed to scam donations off people hardly helps his case. I'd sooner donate to the source/original contributors, not such a juvenile, plagiarizing, useless waste of oxygen.
Browsing through Craigslist for an HD2 I came across multiple posts of people that are offering to upgrade the HD2 to winmo 6.5.x or Android for a fee of anywhere from $30-$60 dollars. I don't think it's right for people to be making a profit from something that they did not create. I highly doubt that they are taking part of the fee that they charge and donating it to the developers for their work. I've been flagging their posts in hopes that they get removed and will post information as to how to do install Androids themselves for free. I don't know if it's appropriate to ask you to do the same in your local cities and encourage the public to donate to the developers themselves instead of paying the $30-$60 dollars to someone that has done nothing to earn them except for ripping off the work of someone else. If I was a chef and stayed up for countless hours, missed family time and what not and found out that someone was making money off my work, i'd be livid. Just wanted to make you guys aware of a situation that is unacceptable.
I don't personally feel that by offering to set someones phone up with all the bells and whistles for a fee is wrong.
If a person doesn't feel like reading up and spending time learning how to setup their phone and wants to pay someone to do it for them that is there choice.
Saying that the person setting the phone up for them isn't right because they are collecting a fee to set up "open source" and freely distributed software onto there phone to save someone who is busy and doesn't have the time to spend hours reading on this forum to accomplish this is just silly.
Yeah all us phone junkies who don't have anything else better to do then sit on XDA and read and learn about our (hobby) for hours on end may seem normal to you and I but a HUGE portion of people do not have the time or wish to waste time on this when they can pay someone to have a tricked out phone to show off at the office.
And beyond that..the economy is in the toilet. People are trying to make a buck any possible way they can to feed themselves.
I have been buying HD2's when I see them cheap on craigslist and bringing them home, tricking them out and then reselling them for $100 to $150 profit for awhile now.
it has kicked in some extra income nicely helping buy kids school cloths, wife a nice dinner, etc etc
Just my two cents.
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marduk79 said:
Browsing through Craigslist for an HD2 I came across multiple posts of people that are offering to upgrade the HD2 to winmo 6.5.x or Android for a fee of anywhere from $30-$60 dollars. I don't think it's right for people to be making a profit from something that they did not create. I highly doubt that they are taking part of the fee that they charge and donating it to the developers for their work. I've been flagging their posts in hopes that they get removed and will post information as to how to do install Androids themselves for free. I don't know if it's appropriate to ask you to do the same in your local cities and encourage the public to donate to the developers themselves instead of paying the $30-$60 dollars to someone that has done nothing to earn them except for ripping off the work of someone else. If I was a chef and stayed up for countless hours, missed family time and what not and found out that someone was making money off my work, i'd be livid. Just wanted to make you guys aware of a situation that is unacceptable.
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+1... Unless these guys are giving donations to the chefs. These guys are also a lot here in Florida. That's why I also give an ad offering a FREE help in putting Android on their HD2.
Very much not trying to start a flame war here because I believe people have the right to do as they please...
But you must have some serious time on your hands to post on craigslist for free services. I need to reinstall my notebook, would you knock that out for me?
Just giving you a hard time.
But on the other issue you brought up. I personally donate to chefs who are elite and really drive some innovation with fixing issues, be it on the vibrant, HD2, nexus, etc. I own and follow six different phones and follow the serious chefs for those products. and kick into the beer fund from time to time. Again just like some who spend there time fixing up a phone for someone who doesn't feel like learning it themselves is really no different then people grabbing roms from here and throwing it on their phones. they technically (could) read, learn and create roms for there own personal use but they rather have someone who is a little smarter do it for them and if they are feeling generous they may kick in a couple bucks as a thank you.
People "don't" have to pay to get their phone tricked out but if they dont feel like spending the time learning it then hell....why not make a buck doing it for them.
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If we lived in a perfect world sure it would be great if they gave part of the profit to the original devs, but we dont and honestly if it get more people into Android is that a bad thing? Most noobs cant even figure out how to put widgets on their screen(had to help a lady do that) so there is no way they can do it themselves even if to us its easy so why not make them happy and the geek can make a little cash. But I agree donating a little to the devs would be the nice thing to do.
All of you have some very valid points. I just found it frustrating that the dev's would see no money from their own product. At the very least what can happen is that the dev's get introduced to other groups of people who in turn may come here, learn to flash their own rom and eventually donate.
CL service providers
I agree with both perspectives on this issue.
a. Yes, there are sereral ppl providing such services
b. Yes, there are several students openly stating they learned how to do this and will do this for you for pizza money (Like $10-$15, so much for big business ideas)
c. Yes, the ppl doing this should donate to devs periodically.
d. Yes, there are several youtube videos out there showing step by step instructions on how to do the upgrades.
e. Yes, several so called craigslist experts end up bricking customer's phones, leave with buggy setups, incorrect radios, robotic voices :-D
I think its best for devs to continue their hard work for the community that appreciates and benefits from their work is far larger than the select few who go K2. The donations will continue to pour in as the development reaches to immaculate full-featured build solutions. At which point, the devs could consider options for official sales of their roms and android builds.
Rule 8: donations up front are not allowed
to quote the mod "asking for donations up-front"
The phrase "if you donate you can have this rom" was never said Someone asked the dev what the public release date would be and he stated 3-4 days. I guess they always have to keep a secret when the releases are.
Seems pretty straight forward. However I fail to see how "established developer with lengthy public release list and contibutions to the scene, rewards the people who, with no pre-knowledege that something might come of it or with any purpose except to say thanks for the work you have already done it is great, helped him with donations so he layed out a beta release for them a few days early."
Maybe we need to change the official XDA rules or make an amendment or something that says. "If at any point ever you release something that does not leave every person with an equal opportunity to download it, barring complications due to persons being on differing Internet Providers, any threads pertaining to this download or the children of this download will be closed and will be looked into to determine if banning is necessary.
That way if any developer feels especially close to his biggest fans and wants to throw them a bonus to really show his appreciation he wont even think of doing any kind or pre release.
Edit: Can someone please post what rule the dev broke? Someone has already posted that he is well with the GPL and I am saying he is well within rule 8
EDIT2: I WOULD LOVE A MOD TO COME HERE AND TRY TO CLARIFY/JUSTIFY THEIR ACTIONS
damn that thread was closed ima wait to install it till its reopened
do not bar this awesome rom
lately i see that the xda team are coming down hard on epic developers. i wonder if there is something else going on...oops, i hope that no one banes me
BRING EPIC EXPERIENCE BACK
ericizzy1 said:
lately i see that the xda team are coming down hard on epic developers. i wonder if there is something else going on...oops, i hope that no one banes me
BRING EPIC EXPERIENCE BACK
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I don't think it is the only one. I thought I remember reading that if Hero's backedsnack had a public releases the thread would be opened here however there is definitely a great 1.3 public release, Rom and Kernel with many things other roms don't have and the thread here is definitely not open.
Wow. I almost mentioned this to him yesterday but figured it must've been within the rules. I know there are lots of different apps/roms on here that go out early to donators, so what's the difference? I assume it's based on him stating publicly that it will go out early to donators?
Glad I got my donation in and download link in my mailbox! Epic Experience is really the only ROM worth running on the Epic right now.
Funny how when I was in the Hero forum this was common practice, and even exposed to the staff here and nothing was done.
If you did not donate, you did not get the ROM until the public release was announced. I don't see why this is a big problem? People develop and take time from their busy lives to make roms, why not ask for donations, and give the people who donate special perks?
Because it's not a donation if you have to pay for it to get it.
Let's say you go to one of those car washes...you know, with the 16 year old girls in skimpy bathing suits with the sign, Donations Only. Now, you pull up there and expect a car wash, but they tell you that you have to pay before they'll even start anything. Not knowing how good a job they'll do, you have no idea how much you'd want to pay them so, because you don't want to pay until it's done, they send you to the back of the line until they make enough money to open it to everyone.
Say one guy pays $15 to that donation and, although the view of their supple, tight breasts smashed against his windshield is highly stimulating, they do little to the car but smear mud all over and leave streaks on the window. They're done now. Great show, but that's not why he came to the car wash. He regrets giving that money now because he drives away with blue balls and a dirty car. Not worth the "donation".
Donations are something given for products/services received up front, otherwise, it's called a charge.
Now take that car wash, ask for a $5 donation up front to have your cash washed now, or wait a week and have to deal with the lines (low bandwith) of being able to have your car washed for free.
Same concept. Its not a charge, its a donation. Because you don't HAVE to donate to be able to download it. The public will be able to download it, just a few days down the road.
I am not to familiar with whats going on as I don't use that rom..but from my understanding he does make the rom publicly available...the only advantage donators get are support and early access to the beta.
I do not see an issue with that in itself...as you can try the rom and everyone has access to it..but with "betas" its up to the author how to handle distribution of it...
THE GPL states
"When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things."
Aka he has the right to charge for distribution according to the GPL..but once obtained a person is free to share the beta to everyone else if they choose.
I personally do not see a problem in that respect..of course if its a violation os a different rule thats another story.
scriz said:
Now take that car wash, ask for a $5 donation up front to have your cash washed now, or wait a week and have to deal with the lines (low bandwith) of being able to have your car washed for free.
Same concept. Its not a charge, its a donation. Because you don't HAVE to donate to be able to download it. The public will be able to download it, just a few days down the road.
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Again. It's not a donation, you're saying "This car wash costs $5."
We have a vending machine at work. It costs 60 cents for a candy bar. But if we wait a month or so, they'll be placed on the kitchen table for free. Is that 60 cents a donation or a cost?
Just because it will be free later does not mean it's not a cost now.
This is okay with me: "Hey, I'm charging whatever you want to pay to get my ROM before anyone else! After I release it to the general public, they can feel free to donate what they feel it's worth."
That is apparently not okay with XDA which is the whole point of the thread. I didn't want to get too far off topic with semantics and my personal feelings.
Grow up xda
Want my advice, of course not but I will post it anyway cause I am waiting for a 30 minute rip file and dont need to read on the can.
Slap him on the wrist, remind him of the rule and move the hell on. This is a DEV doing good things. I dont agree with your rule, all he did was post a day or two early for his supporters, its not like a public release was not coming at all. But I do agree that if you have a rule you then need to enforce it or think about changing the stupid thing.
Seems to me like XDA is becoming a little too militant. Thats all right, these forum sites come and go with change.
Last thing.
I hate criticizing or supporting rules without exposing loopholes (Lawful Neutral with evil tendencies). Here's what I would do as the dev.
1. Follow the friggin' rules.
2. Make a post such as "Having troubles with the newest Beta for XXX ROM"
3. Ardent followers will recognize that ROM and ask why they don't have it
4. The OP (secondary account for the dev or a friend) will explain it's a paid beta (or "required donation" beta if you prefer) of XXXX user's ROM and can contact him here: [email protected] or however you guys do it.
5. "BUT I DON'T WANNA PAY!!!" Well, I think the dev mentioned it will be open to all on XX/XX/XXXX and he'll make a post when it's freely available as per the rules.
Ta-da. Totally within the rules to ask for assistance on ROMs even when others may or may not have them.
And don't lie. Ever. There is never a reason to lie. Dev, put a small, easily noticed and easily fixed bug in your ROM so it's a legitimate post.
People willing to buy an early beta are happy. XDA is happy. Moderators are happy.
othan1 said:
Again. It's not a donation, you're saying "This car wash costs $5."
We have a vending machine at work. It costs 60 cents for a candy bar. But if we wait a month or so, they'll be placed on the kitchen table for free. Is that 60 cents a donation or a cost?
Just because it will be free later does not mean it's not a cost now.
This is okay with me: "Hey, I'm charging whatever you want to pay to get my ROM before anyone else! After I release it to the general public, they can feel free to donate what they feel it's worth."
That is apparently not okay with XDA which is the whole point of the thread. I didn't want to get too far off topic with semantics and my personal feelings.
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Hi will i normally agree with you and take a pretty strict stance on the line between donation and cost. In this rom situation I do not agree. First off yes you are paying for that candy bar. However most car washes like that call it a donation because the driver picks the amount. So the only important thing we can take from that example is that for it to be a donation the donator has to have full control over the amount he wants to give.
Also the car wash is a pretty poor analogy with way to many holes to be meaningful. That car wash doesn't have a previous track record of being free but just for this one superwash you get it a little early. In addition, the car wash doesn't have a set release schedule for a stated timetable. Also another reason for the carwash it is called a donation is becuase you are directly giving money to some "charity" whether it be a real charity or a made up one like giving money so we can go to volleyball state championship. Either way you are donating money to that "charity" then they are washing your car sexily. Lastly the solicit the car wash "cost" of a donation up front.
The most important thing though is to look at the situation. Go back anytime last month and look at the state of things. The first thing the dev did was release a rom to the forums, it started gaining in popularity. Then he released some updates, bugfixes and general tweaks. The rom kept getting better and better and faithful users decided that they wanted to inspire the dev to keep up his good work so numurous people, me included, donated. Now I have only been moved to donated 3 times before, to the xda site, and since I was on a touchpro2 to NRG and MightyMike. In every instance I have donated because the people have provided with a very good product that has greatly improved my experience on my phone. Back to the story, We all donated, the dev never asked for it as payment to the rom, the roms were always available, heck there is nearly a 2 month back catalog, and I am sure there are people out there that will swear that each and every release has the best battery, or the best that, etc. So now the dev has a huge update, He has never publicly stated that he is releasing the rom as an early release and an awesome email ends up in my inbox, which can be considered nothing more than a thank you for your support. He has never stated that he is going to continue releasing roms early to donators or if it is a one time deal. Unless the dev makes a statement about it the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that he will continue to release his rom normally but if he has a huge .1 update then maybe those "benchmark" roms will be release a little early. Since that is the current case.
If someone was to put up a phantom thread with no downloads and start asking for donations for proposed things, get rid of them. That is clearly not the case here.
I don't agree with xda in this.. schizo is a great dev with a great rom and it is fully available to the public for free. Schizo never even brought up the new release in his thread until the donators thanked him for it. Bad move xda for coming down on a dev that's just taking care of his loyal supporters.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I have no prob with early releases, but him posting in his thread about the features of an unreleased public rom is considered a teaser and that is why the mods shut him down.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
othan1 said:
Last thing.
I hate criticizing or supporting rules without exposing loopholes (Lawful Neutral with evil tendencies). Here's what I would do as the dev.
1. Follow the friggin' rules.
2. Make a post such as "Having troubles with the newest Beta for XXX ROM"
3. Ardent followers will recognize that ROM and ask why they don't have it
4. The OP (secondary account for the dev or a friend) will explain it's a paid beta (or "required donation" beta if you prefer) of XXXX user's ROM and can contact him here: [email protected] or however you guys do it.
5. "BUT I DON'T WANNA PAY!!!" Well, I think the dev mentioned it will be open to all on XX/XX/XXXX and he'll make a post when it's freely available as per the rules.
Ta-da. Totally within the rules to ask for assistance on ROMs even when others may or may not have them.
And don't lie. Ever. There is never a reason to lie. Dev, put a small, easily noticed and easily fixed bug in your ROM so it's a legitimate post.
People willing to buy an early beta are happy. XDA is happy. Moderators are happy.
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Thats exactly what happened in the thread, and exactly the point I was trying to get across.
He never said 'donate and you'll get the early releases!!'
The mods on here are independent people and pretty much do whatever the hell they want, so the mod in the Epic forum might be more tight-holed than the one in say, the Hero forum. Where donate-to-get early is the norm.
Well I truly hope the rules at xda are changed or reworded becuase if things are continually enforced that are not in the rules that sounds like a military state.
Man! Speaking of rules I hope ur like 16-17 yourself. Otherwise those are some pedophile type hypotheticals.... lol!
othan1 said:
Because it's not a donation if you have to pay for it to get it.
Let's say you go to one of those car washes...you know, with the 16 year old girls in skimpy bathing suits with the sign, Donations Only. Now, you pull up there and expect a car wash, but they tell you that you have to pay before they'll even start anything. Not knowing how good a job they'll do, you have no idea how much you'd want to pay them so, because you don't want to pay until it's done, they send you to the back of the line until they make enough money to open it to everyone.
Say one guy pays $15 to that donation and, although the view of their supple, tight breasts smashed against his windshield is highly stimulating, they do little to the car but smear mud all over and leave streaks on the window. They're done now. Great show, but that's not why he came to the car wash. He regrets giving that money now because he drives away with blue balls and a dirty car. Not worth the "donation".
Donations are something given for products/services received up front, otherwise, it's called a charge.
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Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Rather then changing the rules..I think they should set a presidents on what way it would be considered ok to do this.
One comment on something that was said in the thread that got closed. A few posters there complained about charging for something that's GPL'ed. Actually, it's totally, unambiguously, and 100% legal to charge for things that are GPL'ed. It's also totally, unambiguously, and 100% legal for anyone who acquires a copy of it to turn around and redistribute it -- for free, or for money.
The GPL2 requires that Schiz license his changes under the same terms. So, anybody who donates and downloads the beta release acquires a license to use it under the GPL2. Likewise, the GPL2 requires that Schiz make the source available to those specific users. The GPL2 does NOT require that Schiz bend over backwards to immediately make his changes instantly available for free to the general public. Or ever make them available for free to the general public at all. Officially, you don't become a licensee of Schiz' changes until you either a) donate, and download it from him, or b) he posts it publicly and you download it from wherever he puts it. HOWEVER, the GPL2 also entitles anyone who acquires a copy of Schiz's changes to redistribute them independently of Schiz.
That's the check and balance. If 10 users feel poor/stingy and want to split the cost of a donation so one can grab it and give copies to everyone else, it's 100% legit and legal under the GPL. It would be equally legal for Schiz to get mad and refuse to answer questions from anyone he caught doing that, because the GPL only conveys the right to obtain the source and redistribute it. The GPL conveys no right to tech support. The fact that something is legal doesn't necessarily mean others have to regard it as good and morally acceptable. You have every right to regard someone as an immoral asshole for doing something that's nevertheless completely legal. Big corporations do things that are technically legal every day, and get excoriated for it by Slashdot users on a regular basis
Suppose I use GPL'ed source to develop an internal app used by a major corporation. There's NO requirement that the source to that internal app ever be made available to anyone outside the company, since only the company is the licensee of the modified code. The only time the source has to be made available to anyone outside the company is if the app ends up getting used in an app used by the company's own customers. That's where lots of big companies get into trouble... they'll use GPL'ed code for years for internal vertical-market apps, then slip it into a publicly-released client app without realizing the licensing implications of doing so until it's too late.
Giving another example, it would be absolutely 100% legal for Tivo to charge customers $100 to upgrade to a newer version of their software. However, under GPL2, it would be 100% legal for anyone who paid $100 for it to redistribute it to others -- Tivo-owning or not. Where the GPL2 and GPL3 differ is that under the GPL2, it's entirely legal for Tivo to respond by making their hardware refuse to allow the upgrade unless you also present it with a valid license code. However, even in the case of the GPL3, the intent of the GPL isn't necessarily to enable anyone to take Tivo's software and build his own Tivo from scratch -- it's to guarantee Tivo owners the freedom to hack and modify their own Tivo to better meet their own individual needs and improve it beyond what Tivo itself is willing/able to do.
The point is that the GPL doesn't quite mean what many people believe it does, and in some contexts the distinction between GPL2 and GPL3 are very important. Android is actually Apache-licensed, but because it's inextricably bundled with Linux, it's effectively governed by the GPL2 as well (for the most part).
wow i carnt post about the jig offer because they at xda keep deleting my threads whats that all about then, and whats the differance with donate and selling c**p. Just because i send it via a package they say no selling, what is donate then, selling or donating your services.:
The donation must be voluntary.
Also this should be in the General section.
Well.. In my case:
I provide Voltage Control application for free;
however some volunteers donated money to me voluntarily, making voluntary donation
Donation is like: you can get the product, no matter if you pay or not.
Selling is like: you can get the product, but you MUST pay for it sooner or later.
Hope it is all clear now
Why not "send" ppl a jig only if they "donate"
Fyi this should go in general.
I can understand where you are coming from. You are just trying to help out the community. If you are selling for a profit, then it is taboo in this forum, and go against the very essence of the spirit of Xda.
Ask yourself this, if you are the one, will you allow this?
Just my 2 cents.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
If this about the usb jig to force a dead sgs into download the idea method and all details are already given freely here. He is only selling it to those who cant wont not able to do it on their own. I think he needs to mention this.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Simple question. If i donated a penny then would you send me a jig? If not then there is clearly a set price which classes it as a sale.
Sent From My GalaxyS Iphone Killer
Thats pretty sad - if you can publish a cost breakdown to show that you are not doing this for profit but to help the community, they SHOULD NOT remove it. Sometimes people cant wrap their head around a rule to make exceptions. On the other hand - we'd be swamped by ebay vendors "making screen protectors for the community". I think your project is an exception and has to be treated as such.
SkinBobUk said:
Simple question. If i donated a penny then would you send me a jig? If not then there is clearly a set price which classes it as a sale.
Sent From My GalaxyS Iphone Killer
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You see.. unlike software which is "made once and distributable unlimitedly", he has to make 1 FOR you. If he is kind enough to volunteer his services- you can chose to donate for that or not. But to have him cough up for the cost of material and postage - its ridiculous.
Although this is in the wrong section, I do have to agree that he should certainly be allowed to charge a minimum price for it. The components that make up this jig cost him money, he should be able to charge exactly the same price (plus shipping). In this example, he would have freely volunteered his time to build the jig. So users should then be able to donate money to help compensate him for his time, on-top of this minimum price (if they wish).
However in saying that I think some members of this community has the wrong idea in general. Everything doesn't need to be free and generally should not be free. A good community should want to compensate other members of the same community who have helped out the community as whole. The issue is simply that it's not always practical to charge a fee. Even if a community member wants to compensate someone else for their efforts, it's not always possible or practical. There should be no such situation where someone who has been helped doesn't wish to express the basic human concept of gratitude. Money is not always practical, but in the case of a good community some sort of thanks should always be in order. Gratitude is a form of currency also, especially now that XDA has a thanks button.
Benjamin Dobell said:
Although this is in the wrong section, I do have to agree that he should certainly be allowed to charge a minimum price for it. The components that make up this jig cost him money, he should be able to charge exactly the same price (plus shipping). In this example, he would have freely volunteered his time to build the jig. So users should then be able to donate money to help compensate him for his time, on-top of this minimum price (if they wish).
However in saying that I think some members of this community has the wrong idea in general. Everything doesn't need to be free and generally should not be free. A good community should want to compensate other members of the same community who have helped out the community as whole. The issue is simply that it's not always practical to charge a fee. Even if a community member wants to compensate someone else for their efforts, it's not always possible or practical. There should be no such situation where someone who has been helped doesn't wish to express the basic human concept of gratitude. Money is not always practical, but in the case of a good community some sort of thanks should always be in order. Gratitude is a form of currency also, especially now that XDA has a thanks button.
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Exactly. I agree - and i dont see the same vehemence in people encouraging donations to the devels who work so hard that i see in people protesting against soliciting money.
ragin said:
If this about the usb jig to force a dead sgs into download the idea method and all details are already given freely here. He is only selling it to those who cant wont not able to do it on their own. I think he needs to mention this.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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SkinBobUk said:
Simple question. If i donated a penny then would you send me a jig? If not then there is clearly a set price which classes it as a sale.
Sent From My GalaxyS Iphone Killer
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ashwinds said:
Thats pretty sad - if you can publish a cost breakdown to show that you are not doing this for profit but to help the community, they SHOULD NOT remove it. Sometimes people cant wrap their head around a rule to make exceptions. On the other hand - we'd be swamped by ebay vendors "making screen protectors for the community". I think your project is an exception and has to be treated as such.
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ashwinds said:
You see.. unlike software which is "made once and distributable unlimitedly", he has to make 1 FOR you. If he is kind enough to volunteer his services- you can chose to donate for that or not. But to have him cough up for the cost of material and postage - its ridiculous.
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ok thanks for all replys, origionally i sent an email to xda asking them if i could have a sticky and every sale i would give xda 50p donation which also gives them some support. was i wrong.
As 1 of the readers posted, the parts do cost. At the moment it is quite hard to find the micro USB plugs which are costing roughly between £1.50 and £2.50 locally. The resisters work out at 42p each and there are 2 of them. 1 is a 300k and the other is a 1k. Also the heat sinc tubing is costing about 20p per plug. Then there is the solder, the electric, petrol to fetch the items and finally the postage that works at £1.00. Therefore the is no profit, not to mention that my time to make them is FREE.
All I wanted to do is to support XDA with a donation of 50p for every one sold and help people with illness or bad eyesight or just not the ability to recover their phones with out having to send it back to the service department because of a lack of knowledge in electronics.
P.S. Selecting the wrong pins on the plugs when soldering could potentially wreck your phone and I think it is really courageous of people with no electronic experience to try and do this.
Thanks for all you replys and support. Let's hope XDA support this and give people the chance to support XDA with their donation.
i also believe that because this site is very public and people are free to download the roms it all sounds very easy and things can and will go wrong from time to time.
lets have a safety net.
Right mate. What I suggest you do is put them on ebay and say these are cool on xda, or post them in xdamarketplace. And quit moaning.
HazzBazz said:
Right mate. What I suggest you do is put them on ebay and say these are cool on xda, or post them in xdamarketplace. And quit moaning.
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who's moaning, i realy dont mind putting them out somewhere else, just trying to put a safety net in the same place as the roms. But do other people think there should be this option.
and why do you care anyway who am i to you.
Although I dont know about whole issue, so just posting based upon info in this thread
Your point is totally valid, but the way you presented it might have been wrong.
You could have proceeded like this
I am giving solution of so and so problem... here are steps
All the steps in details with components required...
With usual warning : Try at your own risk
Those who are unwilling to take risk/lack skills could have asked you to assemble components and mail it by paying cost of components + postage
People happy with service/willing to support you could have Voluntary donated......
ok what i have asked xda is, if people send me the parts with a return envolope i will assemble it and then return it, with donations wecome if you like my work.
this is a free service with no commitment to give me anything.
thechamp007 said:
Although I dont know about whole issue, so just posting based upon info in this thread
Your point is totally valid, but the way you presented it might have been wrong.
You could have proceeded like this
I am giving solution of so and so problem... here are steps
All the steps in details with components required...
With usual warning : Try at your own risk
Those who are unwilling to take risk/lack skills could have asked you to assemble components and mail it by paying cost of components + postage
People happy with service/willing to support you could have Voluntary donated......
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great minds think alike
I've got a better idea.
I don't know how much your selling these for but lets just say £5
I think you should charge £7.50
The £2.50 is a donation to XDA developers to continue running the site, and then you cover your costs.
Personally speaking, I could get these manufactured in bulk for peanuts if you wanted just PM me and i'll do the work - they will be coming from China though...
Today, a couple posts in this thread gave me an idea...
jimmng said:
how about a 1k reward for 8.1 jailbreak?
community needs a bit of a push.
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mkwhater said:
lol are you going to donate that 1k?
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I haven't checked if starting this "project" on XDA would go against any forum rules, but let me try this...
Let's offer a crowd-funded "reward" to the first hacker who comes up with a WORKING jailbreak for Windows RT 8.1. It doesn't have to be "pretty" or polished, just good enough to provide the same functions as the 8.0 jailbreak!
As far as amassing the reward, I would need suggestions to keep it transparent and really entice all these devs and hackers out there...
What do you guys think??
TRSHD said:
Today, a couple posts in this thread gave me an idea...
I haven't checked if starting this "project" on XDA would go against any forum rules, but let me try this...
Let's offer a crowd-funded "reward" to the first hacker who comes up with a WORKING jailbreak for Windows RT 8.1. It doesn't have to be "pretty" or polished, just good enough to provide the same functions as the 8.0 jailbreak!
As far as amassing the reward, I would need suggestions to keep it transparent and really entice all these devs and hackers out there...
What do you guys think??
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Agreed.
I vow to put $50usd up
I like the idea, but I don't think it would help much. People have been working on this for months. Maybe you can convince them to work a little harder, but it's not like this is going to take the place of our day jobs ($1000 US is less than I make in one week, after taxes, for example; I've already put in more than 40 hours of effort myself and I'm far from the most as the majority of my effort goes to WP8).
For bounties like this to be effective, they need to either be large enough to motivate people to work on a long-term project when they would otherwise work on other things (possibly even on other paying activities), or the bounties need to be for small things that people can do in a few days max. As proposed, this is neither.
Don't get me wrong, if I could drop $50 to make a JB magically appear, I'd do it too. But, that's not how research works. Putting money into it - even "real" money, which this is not - doesn't guarantee faster results. It doesn't even guarantee *eventual* success; in this case I'm confident that we'll get it eventually, butI can't actually promise that.
I agree completely with GoodDayToDie, another problem isnt the money but some of the concepts are hard for us to wrap our heads around... Which means more time needs to be dedicated...
I understand your point, GoodDayToDie. This is the exact reason why I started this thread. If I could write code and understand the basics of hacking, I'd work on this myself. Unfortunately, I'm only a very advanced "end-user" that really can't wait for that JB.
As for the monetary compensation, your input is very appreciated. It's also why I didn't mention a specific amount for now. I just thought I should get that discussion going.
BTW, thank you for any and all time you dedicate to the JB!!
GoodDayToDie said:
I like the idea, but I don't think it would help much. People have been working on this for months. Maybe you can convince them to work a little harder, but it's not like this is going to take the place of our day jobs ($1000 US is less than I make in one week, after taxes, for example; I've already put in more than 40 hours of effort myself and I'm far from the most as the majority of my effort goes to WP8).
For bounties like this to be effective, they need to either be large enough to motivate people to work on a long-term project when they would otherwise work on other things (possibly even on other paying activities), or the bounties need to be for small things that people can do in a few days max. As proposed, this is neither.
Don't get me wrong, if I could drop $50 to make a JB magically appear, I'd do it too. But, that's not how research works. Putting money into it - even "real" money, which this is not - doesn't guarantee faster results. It doesn't even guarantee *eventual* success; in this case I'm confident that we'll get it eventually, butI can't actually promise that.
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Great idea!
What about to start project on kickstarter? (where everyone can donate what he can). I guess there are will be much more than 1K.
I think we can call it "extending" Surface 2 functionality.
Double-check whether KS (or any of the other crowdfunding sites) support such bounty projects. It's not usually how they're used and there may be a reason for that. I'd tend to say that doing it right on XDA isn't a great idea anyhow. There probably is a better option that you could link to from here, though.
That was my initial idea, I just don't think the 30-day timeframe is realistic. I'm still looking for an alternative that doesn't require a set date but that's still as transparent...
fakevs said:
Great idea!
What about to start project on kickstarter? (where everyone can donate what he can). I guess there are will be much more than 1K.
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Ok, I found two interesting alternatives: RocketHub and Quirky
Any suggestions?
GoodDayToDie said:
Double-check whether KS (or any of the other crowdfunding sites) support such bounty projects. It's not usually how they're used and there may be a reason for that. I'd tend to say that doing it right on XDA isn't a great idea anyhow. There probably is a better option that you could link to from here, though.
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The suggestion wasn't "don't use KS", it was "make sure the site you use allows this kind of 'bounty' project". That still holds. I don't personally use much crowdfunding; I can't really recommend one site over another.
oooo this is good, I reckon something like kickstarter would work indeed. At least developers will be able to allocate more time than they are now, time is money my friends.
... I don't know what kind of job you have, but that's not how most jobs in the software world work. I[m salaried; I can't just ask for fewer hours because I have some other project to work on. That's even assuming that the other project (jailbreaking RT 8.1) paid out at all; maybe somebody else gets it first and I have nothing for that time? Maybe nobody ever manages it, and the money sits and languishes while we spend time on things that (according to you) we could be spending on something that makes money instead? Maybe (this one is actually really common) we have good jobs that pay well, but consume enough of our time that we don't *want* to spend our free time on something that feels like work?
A bounty project might get people to work on this when they might otherwise work on some other hobby or research. This would be valuable, and may be worth establishing a bounty for. But trust me, it's not going to make them "able to allocate more time than they are now". Not for something with no income while working and no guarantee of payout at the end. That's just not how the world works.