From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Kickstarter for Emacs Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:38:51 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87wr5dfm9v.fsf@gnu.org> <87398118ys.fsf@thinkpad.tsdh.de> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1334860745 24776 80.91.229.3 (19 Apr 2012 18:39:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:39:05 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Nikodemus Siivola Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Apr 19 20:38:59 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SKwFu-0006Zq-Px for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:38:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47750 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SKwFu-00042v-7T for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:38:58 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:57391) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SKwFr-00042b-9A for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:38:56 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SKwFp-0004IR-3T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:38:54 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([208.118.235.10]:41672) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SKwFo-0004IL-VI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:38:53 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SKwFn-0004nX-48; Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:38:51 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Nikodemus Siivola on Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:58:52 +0300) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 208.118.235.10 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:149833 Archived-At: > Is it likely that Emacs development would excite people who happen > upon it in such a site?  Or would most of the funds come from people > told about the project by the FSF?  I expect the latter. Neither. Most successful crowdfunding projects get most of their publicity in a viral manner. Most of the funds would come from Emacs users who have no contact with FSF, but read about it on some blog they follow, on Twitter, Facebook, on a mailing lists, etc -- by their someone who has donated and is excited about it. You may be right, but it does not affect this question. It is a multiplier on both sides. If X people find out through our announcements and Y people through the crowdfunding site, and if each of them directly or indirectly leads to a total donation of M from themselves and various people they inform, the total will be M (X + Y). A large value of M is good, but the question here is about how X and Y compare. I would also /strongly/ suspect that while FSF itself could probably run a successful crowdfunding campaign to fund it's activities in general, that for a specific software project the more it is about the individual developer(s) wanting to implement Their Thing and the less it is about FSF, the more chance of success it has. Not because some people don't like FSF, but because they want to give money to the people who write the code. Maybe we are miscommunicating. I am comparing two different ways to inform people they can give money to developers to write a particular change. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call