Light Table: 24 Hours to Get Another $7000 in the Kickstarter for Python Support
kickstarter.com
kickstarter.com
Rocket projects are very expensive!!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermesspace/hermes-space...
Why not crowd fund a team that builds a Lunar X-Prize entry?
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/
And open source the design, of course.
More down to earth, crowd funding is doing some interesting stuff like helping to get this 3D printer built.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/b9creations/b9creator-a-...
[1] http://andyet.net/blog/2012/may/25/maximum-viable-products/
Noir is my favorite of his projects so far - a light weight web app framework that I have used for work and for my own projects.
I think many of these projects aren't selling the product as much as the magic of being part of something and helping it come to fruition. Putting a bit of money down is so much easier than e.g. donating two hours a week to coding on the project. Donate money, drink beer, feel good.
Say the main project needs $200k to get funded. This becomes the main target goal. If this is reached, the core is funded and those backers pay up.
Then you have the feature/subproject goals. These are separate counters for those who will only back a project if the feature/subproject will be implemented. So say you need $50k on top of the core goal to support Mac OSX and another $50k to support Linux. Supporters for Mac OSX & Linux support can choose to fund the platform they want directly. That way if the main project hits 200k but Mac OSX and Linux each get $25k each (which in the current setup would probably mean only support for one of them, whichever is listed first), then those separate $25k pots are just dropped as if the project were not funded. That way supporters aren't forced to pay up and get nothing of value in return.
In the case that the core support spills over, say it hits $225k, then the project owner can choose which extra feature to pick up and they will get that donation money (if they pick Mac OSX, they get those donations but the Linux supporters don't have to pay up, and vice-versa).
In general, regardless of how much funding one might have, one would also like to have the maximum dollar value of sales possible. Kickstarter facilitates this both by enabling sales-like revenue in the first place, and by enabling price discrimination. I'd need to learn more about the Kickstarter funding mechanism to understand whether the sales analogy is totally appropriate or just partially so, but it seems to me to be the far better analogy when compared to venture funding.
Edit: And I think the point stands notwithstanding the fact that Light Table won't be free software.
All I'm saying is that it's not like he's going to run out of money to build in Python support.
Now it is on there and all I see everytime it get's up here is people complaining, saying they won't fund because of xyz or don't think it will succeed without blurb. Even better: Some get destructive and say how much better Eclipse or the likes are.
Please stop this shit, don't fund, don't use, don't complain and please don't raise such shitstorms on every single Light Table discussion. Can we probably focus a little on being constructive about projects like this?
Even though they say it'll be open source, that doesn't exclude the possibility of a commercial license that could be far more expensive.
Maybe this is a bad argument to make. But if it interests you, $15 isn't a massive expense if you think you'll get a lot out of it.
Well, there's two core parts to open source and free software and neither have much to do with not having to pay for it (though that often is the case). First, there's the availability of source code and second is free as in freedom, not as in beer. But we don't yet know what license this will be released under, so we don't know what rights or restrictions may apply. Presumably, by the sounds of the text about Light Table being open source, it will be a standard Free and Open source license (GPL seems most likely to me) and he also says that the paid license will probably apply to prebuilt packaged releases, so if you don't mind building everything yourself, you may well get it for free after all.
I think the pay what you want model would be appropriate
I agree, for Free & Open Source Software, pay what you want seems like a very suitable model.
Kickstarter does not provide enough difference between bad and good choices. You get a t-shirt or nothing. It's an option that nobody would buy in an open market.
This is not necessarily bad. Or good. It's ok. But it is not a market that is in any way fair with respect to capital. And capital does not mean Big Money! Capital means ordinary Joe giving away cash they saved for worse days based on the emotional appeal of something, instead of any rational assessment of its worth.
Moreover, there's a secondary issue with the confusion of market norms and social norms. Ostensibly, this project spawned from a passion for programming. Now, however, that passion is unclear, because it seems to be about money, given the quasi-ultimatum for python support.
There are probably thousands of game developers, filmmakers, mobile app creators, artists, etc... who would disagree with you there.
Marketing and promotion is sadly necessary to rise above the noise. Kickstarter is basically a way to do a pre-sale which looks like it's going to work out well for all those involved.
Not to mention that it's a pretty big luxury to be able to afford working on something great and revolutionary for the love of it with no remuneration.
This is not a trivial project and it's clear the market disagrees with you.
I could have also imagined the whole thing, so while that may serve to answer your question, you shouldn't take only my word on it.
Also, I'm not sure how it would work for people who donated solely in hopes that Python would be supported. Since they've long passed their actual kickstarter funding amount, does that leave ~$100k worth of donors that won't get what they tried to buy, but can't get their money refunded?
They'll probably get the money and we'll never know, but I would be interested to find out how they're planning to handle these issues.
If I recall correctly, when Light Table was accepted into YC, Chris sent out an e-mail saying that Light Table was now guaranteed to happen and that if the only reason you donated was to make sure the project went through, you can feel free to retract the pledge (no money is withdrawn until the actual end date).
He also mentioned that with YC backing Python support was likely to happen sooner or later, but the $300k mark still puts Python in the "sooner" bucket.
"...the core of Light Table be open sourced once it is launched."
What 'core' means, I have no idea.
They admit that this is an experiment of how business and open source can mix.