[josm-dev] JOSM donations?

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Mon, 1 Aug 2011, Frederik Ramm wrote:

>>  Things for which possible donations could be used:
>>   * awards for implementing enhancements, fixing bugs
>
> I'm skeptical of such "bounties". They haven't worked for OSM in the past and 
> they seldom work for any open source project (why work for free when you can 
> get money).

I didn't think about much money here. Only more like a "thank's well done" 
in the range of 30-50 EUR. It's meant more like a little encouragement in 
hope that maybe some of the authors feel like staying with JOSM later as 
well. Maybe instead of money we make JOSM coffee cups or T-shirts with "I 
did improve JOSM" and send them.

I also doubt that a bounty system as you call it will work.

> Also, I expect there to be disagreement over which bits are worth a bounty 
> and which aren't.

Probably. But I think for small money the disagreement will not be that 
much.

>>  * awards for improving translations
>
> We're an open source project. Translations need to be done by the people who 
> want to use them. If those who would like JOSM in Swahili cannot muster the 
> manpower to produce it then no money in the world will help - it's just like 
> with data imports, you might be able to improve things for a moment by paying 
> someone, but every change that is made will require new effort, and that only 
> works if there are people who care.

Here I disagree. Translation issue is a bit more difficult. Contrary to 
programming software translating is a stupid task which nevertheless needs 
a lot of experience. A little encouragement may help here. Only very few 
translators really maintain translation later, so a pay per job improves a 
translation and result is not different from volunteers.

>>  * better SSL certificate
>
> Another project has received funding from FOSSGIS for that. I believe we 
> could too, or we could ask OSMF.

I already asked FOSSGIS if you remember.

>>  Currently my plan would be to implement Flattr and a PayPal donation
>>  button (if possible not to prominently on every page, otherwise only on
>>  startup page).
>
> I see an accountability issue. One person would have to be the account holder 
> for this and nobody would know how much money arrives in that account. Even 
> if the account were handled by someone I trust, there would be enough others 
> who would not trust that person and express suspicion.

Yes true. That's why I said it is in any way only for small amounts. E.g. 
in Germany it would be possible to handle max. 410 EUR a year for a 
single person.

There are always People who can't be satisfied and actually I don't care 
much about them.

Actually I myself think it is may be a good idea to have a bit of own 
money for josm. When I developed Shareware in the past it was always an 
encouragement to me when someone actually registered the software and 
payed the fee.

I would take the job of managing that money when necessary, but actually I 
fear that I may get tax troubles when I'm not very carefully. So e.g. 
FOSSGIS as donation collector would be fine. But there should be a 
possibility to mark the money as "for JOSM" and also to have a chance for 
us to choose a possibility to spend that money. Currently if FOSSGIS gets 
money it is FOSSGIS money and we would come as petitioner. I don't like 
this (see last section below).

> And "own server" - you know what I think about JOSM being more and more a 
> client to some JOSM server somewhere. I'd like to get rid of the server 
> instead of building up even more capacity which will doubtless be filled by 
> you with lots of clever Python contraptions that nobody else can maintain.

I know, but nevertheless I think you are wrong here. And regarding 
maintaining I already told you, that it is relatively good documented and 
easy to do (much easier than at the time when I started and compared to 
this time it is much more powerful). Please have a look before 
complaining again.

I don't know if you followed admin discussion recently, but TagWatch has 
constant attacks from FOSSGIS admins and JOSM hosting is also called an 
accident and we have resource trouble with the tile server from time to 
time.

I simply don't trust FOSSGIS in this topic currently.

> Instead of "collect money then see how we spend it", I'd suggest "define what 
> we want, find out what it costs, then ask people to donate to OSM/FOSSGIS for 
> that specific cause". - If a cause can be found that is worth spending money 
> on, and I'm not convinced yet.

Which is a good approach for larger issues, but for 10 EUR there and 20 
EUR there it is much to much overhead to discuss every issue multiple 
days. The result simply means it is not done, as I already spend enough 
time for JOSM - I wont spend time discussing politics again and again for 
such small amounts.

Ciao
-- 
http://www.dstoecker.eu/ (PGP key available)