Would you donate U$S10 to a group developers to build a better contentlister?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Napoleon

a) See if anyone else (besides me) was bothered by this curse (the six-files-per-page thing)

That would be a definite YES. Increasing the number of items in the content lister was probably the #1 most requested improvement for the iLiad.

[Napoleon]

Thanks Shaggy, I kind of suspected that.

BTW, I've seen that last couple of days the "No way José" option won a few votes.
It's funny that only 'yes'-voters care to take a minute and write us about the reason for their choosing. I cannot understand how people can pay 600€ (I'm in Europe) for an Iliad half-usable and not be willing to pay the 'hypothetical' $10 extra to have it really working (I mean productive working).

I know some people will say that they've already paid for the product, and therefore that this functionality should already be covered by that. Well, if that's the reason for voting 'No' to this poll, it would be great to state it here, so that iRex would know what users think of their product (both hardware and software).

Cheers!

[Adam B.]

I was one of the people who voted "No.".

I don't think that open source projects should be "Paid" for. If it was working on such a project, I wouldn't accept the money. To me, accepting donations means that you are required to provide full support for your creation, and accept any liability from it.

We certainly have plenty of developers willing to do this work for free, in their spare time. The problem for most people, I assume, is finding that free time. Money's not really a factor.

[Napoleon]

I know Adam B., and I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that people like you exist to make our lifes a lot easier. I didn't mean to offend you (or any of the great developers this forum has) by this. Moreover, I agree that open source project should not be paid for. But hey! that's why they invented donations!

I wish you all a happy new year! Bon réveillon à tous!

[ericshliao]

I voted "No", too. And I voted before my first post in this thread.

The reason:
1. Same as Adam.
2. Money does not matter. What matters to me is people's willingness to spare some time to think , try, participate, discuss, and feedback. As a amateur developer, I would like to interact with users and see people's feedback more than money, unless the amount of money is so huge that I can't resist.

[Napoleon]

Originally Posted by ericshliao

[...] Money does not matter. [...] unless the amount of money is so huge that I can't resist.

"Amo de sus silencios, y esclavo de sus palabras" ...

[ericshliao]

Originally Posted by Napoleon

"Amo de sus silencios, y esclavo de sus palabras" ...

我看不懂你在說什麼？

[Napoleon]

Ah! I'm sorry, I see "you don't know what I am talking about"
(I learnt a bit of chinese during my high school, and have always been fascinated by the culture ever since).

I'm sorry, that's just spanish. It means something like:
"[A man is] is master of his silences and a slave of his words".

I guessed my translation would not be as good as the original phrase.
Kind of "Traduttore, traditore!", if you know what i mean.

你明白吗？
感谢投票，并表达您的意见。

[Napoleon]

PS
Sorry in advance for my mistakes on chinese!

[ericshliao]

I guess you tried to indicate that there is some contradiction in my words in that post. But I don't think there is any if you read the whole paragraph without omitting some sentence.

子日：知之為知之，不知為不知，是知也。

[jharker]

I haven't been around much recently, mostly because of thesis work. I should be away for another month or so, at which time I hope to have the thesis mostly wrapped up. In the meantime, it looks like the iLiad OS will be on the back burner for me, so some serious delays should be expected in the project.

I mention this because I'm currently looking for a job, as all near-graduates are, and the options are pretty slim, given the state of the economy. I've been applying to job listings for months and not really getting anywhere.

Anyway, at one point in my search I seriously considered whether I could work on iLiad OS and related projects as a full-time job, supported by some combination of donations and advertising revenue. I'm a big e-book enthusiast and would love to work on it seriously, full time. And, of course, it would expand my resume in new (and potentially more employ-able) directions for the future.

Ultimately, however, I decided that it wouldn't be feasible. My reasons were roughly:

1. I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Many people are actively contributing to iLiad development, and I worry that trying to make money by expanding other peoples' work would offend everyone who works on it for free!
2. Small user base. E-books are still a niche market, and within that market the iLiad is even smaller. Many major open-source development projects can only afford a few full-time employees. It's not realistic to expect to make even a small living working on such a (relatively) small project.

But to answer the original post: If a developer started a FOSS project for an iLiad-compatible e-book ContentLister, and if they made a home page for the project, and if they put up a tip jar on the home page, AND if I actually HAD $10 to spare, then yes, I think I probably would donate.

[joelypolly]

Originally Posted by jharker

I haven't been around much recently, mostly because of thesis work. I should be away for another month or so, at which time I hope to have the thesis mostly wrapped up. In the meantime, it looks like the iLiad OS will be on the back burner for me, so some serious delays should be expected in the project.

I mention this because I'm currently looking for a job, as all near-graduates are, and the options are pretty slim, given the state of the economy. I've been applying to job listings for months and not really getting anywhere.

Anyway, at one point in my search I seriously considered whether I could work on iLiad OS and related projects as a full-time job, supported by some combination of donations and advertising revenue. I'm a big e-book enthusiast and would love to work on it seriously, full time. And, of course, it would expand my resume in new (and potentially more employ-able) directions for the future.

Ultimately, however, I decided that it wouldn't be feasible. My reasons were roughly:

1. I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Many people are actively contributing to iLiad development, and I worry that trying to make money by expanding other peoples' work would offend everyone who works on it for free!
2. Small user base. E-books are still a niche market, and within that market the iLiad is even smaller. Many major open-source development projects can only afford a few full-time employees. It's not realistic to expect to make even a small living working on such a (relatively) small project.

But to answer the original post: If a developer started a FOSS project for an iLiad-compatible e-book ContentLister, and if they made a home page for the project, and if they put up a tip jar on the home page, AND if I actually HAD $10 to spare, then yes, I think I probably would donate.

My advice to you is keep trying with your job applications. When I graduated it took over 60+ resumes over 2 months before I got 2 interviews. And once I got to the interview I got the job. Now that I am on the other side of the fence (hiring) I find that there is an incredible signal to noise ratio that makes it really hard to find who is actually worth the time to give an interview to. Maybe you can sign up with a recruiter in your area.

There are a lot of ways of making money without stepping on people's toes. First and foremost be upfront about the fact that the project is a community thing. You could take the lead on a lot of things as you would be the one with the most free time. Also a lot of times people pay for "support" as opposed to paying for a package/product. Maybe talk to the other contributers about what they think.

If you had your own blog you would put some advertisements up, write some howto's for the iLiad, maybe send it to iRex so you get a bit more traffic etc. I don't think anyone in the community will look down on you for doing that. What's stopping you from being that developer you mentioned in the post

Anyways my 2c

[Napoleon]

Hey!
I don't know if it is just me, but it looks as if the "money thing" in this post/poll kind of offended some people, or led others to believe that if they actually do it for the money they would be "stepping on people's toes".

I really appreciate the initiative and the effort of those of you who just develop software for fun, for the kicks, for the challenge, for other users, etc. But I am also aware that all those reasons, as soul-fulfilling as they might be, do not fulfill your stomach when you're hungry.

So, if you're good at it, if you do it proffesionally and offer a good product/support... why not?

From a personal standpoint, I would say that _if_ it would help boost the community project, I would for sure donate. I deeply believe in open-source user-supported community projects.

I would love to hear your opinions!

[jharker]

Oh- sorry, I may have been unclear. The thought process I describe above happened a couple of months ago. My worry that people might be offended came from my own analysis a while ago, and had nothing to do with this poll or any of the responses (most of which I haven't read!).

Even if I wasn't worried about offending people, I still wouldn't develop for the iLiad full-time because there just isn't enough money in it. Don't worry! I'll still be working on it in my spare time... once I have some spare time... And thanks for the moral support about my job search-- I'm sure I'll find something eventually!

Cheers!

[JamesT]

Hi Jharker

Support from people is more important than most of us realise in our hectic busy lives. I would like to add my best wishes to you and also hope you find employment soon. I have just retired and am having to adjust the other way!

I am not a programmer so have no way to support the development of the iLiad in any meaningful way but would love to see the device developed to its full potential. I have occasionally tried to dabble in coding but get confused with all the various programming languages. I would be interested to read a basic howto on which language to concentrate on learning even if it was to only better understand what the developers talk about.

Anyway, all the best!
JamesT