Online donation platforms or [later edit]: other methods of gaining financial support for UT

dobey

@C0n57an71n Please be more specific in your topics. Vague questions aren't going to get you specific answers, and result in a lot of back and forth "no, what I mean is…" type of comments that don't really further the discussion.

And UBports is on Patreon already: https://patreon.com/ubports

A Former User

@dobey What I mean is UBports and UT are not visible, as it seems to me, on the donate/campaign thing. Jesus, people are raising money to bury their loved ones. I would like to see an improvement regarding the financial resources that can push UT further and that is way I'm asking. I don't have a bug or a problem, I try to discuss ideas. I thought it was a "incubator".

A Former User

@dobey To be a little bit more clear: when is about donation, there are 3 types of people:

The ones that support the project and donate regularly
The ones the like the idea and donate a small amount, but wont start using UT from tomorrow.
The ones that tells you to F&%§ off.

Patreon is more like a fan-directed thing and people on point 2 are a lost resource. We need to find a way to be visible for the people from point 2.

dobey

Yes, we obviously would like to see more money being given to UBports as well.

And yes, especially in the US where we live in a dystopian capitalist dreamland, people have to make a gofundme to afford insulin or other medicines. But that really doesn't have anything to do with UT.

But when you make a topic like this saying "has anyone thought of X?" and that's it, and we reply with "yes, look at our page here where we do X" it doesn't help to reply "that won't help because nobody knows of UT."

If you already know about that, and have specific suggestions you're thinking of, then it's better to start out with that. In this specific case, maybe your first post could have been something more like:

Hi all!
I see a few ways to donate at https://ubports.com/donate and think there should be some more crowdfunding type sites to garner interest and funding. Has anyone looked at Fundly, or other such sites beyond Patreon and Liberapay?

A Former User

@dobey Got it! I packaged the entire thing wrong.
I have no specific target right now regarding donation platforms. I just want to start discussing ideas regarding that.
Pros. Cons, etc.
I

A Former User

@dobey As you can see from my recent posts, I have posted mostly bad ideas and most of them around money. We all talk about bugs and requests, but when it comes about money you can hear the crickets. This project cannot survive without financial support. The more, the better, but without compromises.
Edit: The best way to get rid of the bugs is by donating! Maybe a developer won't have to sell hot-dogs instead of coding...

A Former User

If I started this thread with an idea (about raising money), then I'll take this idea further:
What if we setup a system like this:
- a target with achievement and deadline, let's say "Make Libertine fully functional in 6 months"
- the process must be doable at this moment and more like a time consuming task that can be quantified in time and money
- an estimation of the resources with focus on the cost
- display that like: "We need your help to make Libertine functional and it cost this."
- people will know this way that they can contribute to fixing bugs or upgrading stuff, and next time they will complain something's not working, just show them the banner.

The problem with this approach is that someone needs to do this quantification, both in costs and priority of the target, which will bring discussions about favors etc etc etc...

dobey

@C0n57an71n said in Online donation platforms:

a target with achievement and deadline, let's say "Make Libertine fully functional in 6 months"

I think we should avoid vague wording and unachievable goals like this. "Fully functional" is quite subjective and can change a lot over the course of a goal. Anything like this should be very specific and achievable.

Also, whom gets to decide on such targets? We have a board of directories for UBports Foundation who already is contracting people to work on specific goals, and also one member of the board who does outreach to other companies like pine64 and Volla for getting some funding to UBports while providing them with enhancements to Ubuntu Touch.

Then the problem is, there has to be someone ready to start working on it, with a signed contract, as soon as whatever funding goal for that is reached. It's creating a distraction and stress, and reduces focus on other things, because now people have to spend time advocating for this funding and goal, and worrying about whether the funding will succeed, instead of concentrating on more important tasks at hand.

So there are more problems with such an approach than simply quantifying how much time/money is needed to do some specific feature.

A Former User

@dobey Thanks for the feed-back! That is where I saw the crack as well.. with quantifying things and saying how much they costs, who's gonna do it, but why him, but why this, is this that important... and sooo on...

A Former User

The problem is simple, just like the triangle of fire, but instead of heat - oxygen - fuel, we talk about software - community - money. As long as we ignore money and don't tackle this problem, the progress will be slow and frustrating. We could fill this forum with bug reports and enhancement requests as long as we want, the truth is, if developers were payed enough to stay focused on this project, maybe we wouldn't have these bugs in the first place...

dobey

@C0n57an71n Simply because you don't see it being discussed everywhere doesn't mean it is being ignored.

And if it was simple, it wouldn't be a problem, since it would be solved and we'd have all the money we could ever need already.