[kdewebdev-site] Roll call

[Eric Laffoon]

On Sunday 20 February 2005 12:44 pm, Chris Martin wrote:
> Eric Laffoon wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > for my information could you reply here if you are wanting to be active
> > in site development. Also could you answer the following?
>
> I want to help too. I'm currently very busy with a deadline that's
> creeping on me, but anticipate some free time after that (March). I'd
> like to try and set aside a few hours a week to contribute though.

We should be more into a push there, but my objective is to do this in a 
transitional way. Right now I need to get some things straightened out with 
George so that we can use CVS. We will work with some PHP4 and begin th 
design. A "low end" site will be a big improvement over the sourceforge site 
and seem worth celebrating, but I want to limit work there while we begin 
brining up the new server. This will give us some useful gripes and kinks to 
work out as well as some creative input and experience working together. 
While we begin the new architecture on the virtual server we will focus on 
content that can easily be imported on the current server. By the time we 
switch it over I hope to minimize rework and have a good architecture to 
build on.
>
[...]
> > Site areas of interest? (It would be useful if the application areas had
> > someone willing to take oversight to insure loose ends are completed)
> > Main
> > Quanta
> > Kommander
> > KFileReplace
> > KImageMapEditor
> > KXSL dbg
> > developer
>
> Quanta, KFileReplace, Kommander..
> How about cervisia?

Technically that's not our project so we would provide a link. However it is 
worth having something about this I think on the Quanta subdomain as well as 
the link to the excellent tutorial by Carlos Woelz.
>
> > Feature you would like to see on the site?
>
> Quanta Docs.

I'll be putting them up shortly.

> Info/how to's on other packages (Kommander, etc), and how they integrate
> with Quanta/kdewebdev.

This is where we get to have fun and one place I can see being fun as people 
step up and hash it out. ;-)
>
> > After the initial site is rolling we will be developing a second site to
> > reach several objectives. For the project the objective will be to create
> > a revenue stream to fund development sponsorships. For end users it will
> > be a subscription support service. The objective is to provide a service
> > starting at the cost of somewhere between a cup of coffee or lunch for
> > monthly membership. This would provide more extensive help as well as
> > content like articles and tutorials. (This would also offer service
> > contracts to clients who wish to purchase one, which would be
> > advantageous for adopting Quanta in some areas.) The content would be
> > available only to members for a time out period after which it would be
> > generally available. So this would be like what magazines do. I would
> > like to find people interested in contributing work here and once it is
> > going I would be happy to contract for content based on subscription
> > revenue for part of the service. Would you be interested in helping to
> > create this for the project?
>
> mixed feelings about this. I can't stand when I go to a magazine site
> and they do this (after I've already bought their magazine).
> But at the same time, there's a good reason behind yours, and the prices
> sound like they'll be more than reasonable.

I completely agree with how you feel but there are practical realities. In 
this case my thinking lead me to the conclusion that a lot of people would 
like to contribute but just aren't in the habit of doing so and aren't quite 
moved to do this. At the same time I think people would happily outlay a 
minor amount for something useful, and I believe that there are a lot of 
people who would really like more useful information. The reality is that 
there are also many of us who would like to do this, but there are time and 
financial issues that keep us from doing it. 

By adopting this model we convey the same model of the project as a whole. 
That is that freely contributed time is powerful but centering activity 
around the committed effort of people without financial and time distractions 
provides a leveraged "backbone" to the effort that is more efficient for time 
spent and more consistent in that time. The advantage here is that if some of 
the content is contracted it can be scheduled and this is key because it 
means there is a reason to go there regularly. For someone who is looking at 
this the option to make a little extra money can be very useful. 

If the whole concept comes together as it should then logically it should 
become as successful as Quanta has been as a project... and this means Quanta 
becomes much more successful in it's outreach in shaping a standards based 
web and we draw from a larger base in our subscriptions to support our 
project. This means our sponsored developers get a raise and maybe our 
project leader gets a small amount to continue to justify his time and 
convince his wife he is not a complete idiot skipping out on work all the 
time. ;-) If I can spend time with less conflict and also have resources to 
sponsor additional developers we can begin attacking new media development 
tools. In the process of this we could also run contests for resource 
contributions with cash prizes and other things this would empower us to do. 
The objective is that over the next two years the project becomes orders of 
magnitude more impressive in comparison to everything else. 

Consider the possibility of having unlimited resources in the form of articles 
and examples centered on our software as well as toolbars, templates, scripts 
and anything you could imagine available for instant incorporation into your 
projects. It is this level of polish that largely differentiates top 
commercial projects and it is my ambition to vastly overwhelm them.
>
> Locking articles and tutorials also seems kind of "Mandrake"-ey to me at
> first. I picture users searching for something, only to find "Join the
> club" messages everywhere.

I can see that... but while we could argue the pros and cons of some of what 
Mandrake has done there are indisputable facts. They have done a fairly good 
job of making a friendly distribution, and also done some less than good 
things with releasing a bad CVS snapshot in order to generate funds. They 
have come through the fire of reorganization and are making a profit as a 
company, and this is significant because they have a number of employees and 
I would say cost thousands of times as much as out little project. They have 
never diverted one red cent to our efforts while they have profited a fair 
amount by having our software. 

Cost and ownership is a big factor. I also own a business that I started in 
utter poverty without credit and without investors. In every choice I was 
able to put the integrity of what we did first, as I have in the project. I 
believe Mandrake strives for integrity... but when you have financial 
stresses on that level sometimes you are forced to choose. A financially 
conservative approach to cost never has to make that choice, even if growth 
may be slower.

I want to create a means to both attract users who require support and at the 
same time expand what we're doing. My objective is to expand the model we 
have done with Quanta to bring quality and growth to our module and other 
desktop software in a greater degree than ever before. This is a first step. 
In this particular case it is something I wanted to introduce here as I don't 
intend to keep any secrets about my intentions. At the same time I don't want 
to make a lot of noise about them as that can create unforeseen problems. I 
don't want anyone to feel that they should be at all compelled to help with a 
project to help fund our efforts as it will be separate and distinct from the 
main site. However there is a huge potential benefit so I wanted to see who 
might be interested in helping to launch a support arm. The support are would 
include both volunteer and contract elements but it would exist solely for 
the purpose of extending the core project and it's influence.
-- 
Eric Laffoon
Project Lead - kdewebdev module