kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Vesa Solonen <vesa.solonen@xxxxxxxx>]

Because development of KiCad is based on donations of time, skill and
effort, there are some will and resources that can not be used for
development under the current development model. That will and resources
come from the users of KiCad who don't have time, skill or other
opportunity to put direct effort in the development.

Fortunately the system of exchange economy was devised to solve the
exchange of time, skill, effort and other resources. A common exchange
item called money made this even more efficient. Crowdsourcing is going
to be the next step in the exchange economy where the producer and
consumer parts get interwined. KiCad is an example of that.

So what about opening a feature bounty system for KiCad? On Kickstarter
or something. For me it would be easiest if an euro area company could
invoice for patches. I haven't done any tax related investigation
regarding funding free software, but as the results of funding will be
available for everyone there must be some way of taking it in account.

My reasoning for funding free software development is that I get better
return of investment than from paying proprietary software license. When
I'm paying proprietary license cost I don't get anything but a right to
use the provided binary. My investment will benefit the future customers
and the maker of the software. I most probably don't get any benefit
from the future customers benefiting from my investment. I'll be
benefiting from the customers before my time, but I have no assurance of
any kind that my investment will benefit anyone. The company may close
it's operations next day and all I got was a buggy binary that I can not
rely on for any amount of time. Free software changes all that. That's
why I choose free software even if it costs money.

To put my idea in real world terms, I'm willing to put 500€ on the table
for:

* Differential netclass rules (potential classes)
* Differential line support
[* Finishing up KiCad-gal]

I see that the amount offered is not enough to pay ones salary (in
Finland) for the job, but I'm not demanding the copyright either. I'm
neither expecting to fund all of it myself, but the above would be my
part of the investment.

Best regards,
-Vesa