Let's finance LMMS full-time development

[pgib]

Hey guys. I am Paul Giblock and I am an LMMS developer.

As I've told people before, If I can get sponsored, I would take time off of work to focus on LMMS. I am not willing to quit my job to work on LMMS, that is because there is no steady income stream. However, If I could affort to take 2 weeks off of work (for example) to focus on LMMS then I would jump on that opportunity immediately.

I agree Paul Davis has done alot for Linux Audio. However, if the only app you use is LMMS, then it doesn't make much sense to only donate to Ardour - now does it?

Regarding Jack support - it is something that we are trying to improve. Infact, right now we are rewriting huge portions of our code to better support songs with timesignature and tempo changes as well as to support external transport (Jack).

For what it's worth, I've been working on LMMS for over 2 years. I've "made" $20.

So, I fully support this initiative, I don't think we will have enough to fully fund a developer now.. but it can be something that a developer can go and work heads-down on LMMS for a few weeks once the fund reaches a certain point.
-Paul

[studio32]

@ Paul, but if someone is having a plan (in line with GPL license) and discussing it with you, which could even benefit the income of LMMS, you scream "murder and fire", jump to a forum board right away and telling that man is evil. Even if in the same thread it is explained that such a plan could be in line with GPL. Why do you release your software as GPL then? (This kind of behavior from your side, makes that people will do this kind of plans without discussing it in future). Maybe you shouldn't be surprised then if you don't get much money...
http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php ... t=15#p8192

It's nice that you work on Jack support though.

[Louigi Verona]

Hey, guys! Let's not turn this thread into personal flaming and focus on the subject please.

Paul, great, that is a good thing that you would be willing to take a couple of weeks off. Then now what we all need to know is the goal - the amount of money needed for, say, those two weeks.

[pgib]

@ Paul, but if someone is having a plan (in line with GPL license) and discussing it with you, which could even benefit the income of LMMS, you scream "murder and fire", jump to a forum board right away and telling that man is evil... http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php ... t=15#p8192

Uhm. Reading that thread, I just see that I mentioned Aaron Lovelace's BeatMachinePro project had failed. He was not originally playing fair. AFAIK, the source code was not released with the Beat Machine Pro bundles. Additionally, he didn't have any mention of LMMS. We discussed the issue, Aaron confirmed that the AUTHORS was kept intact, he also put a "Powered by LMMS" on his page. After this point, we remained "Hands off". It is one thing to meet the licensing agreements. However, there is great value in having full support from upstream. A few weeks later his project was cancelled, probably due to lack of consumer interest.

Sorry, but I don't even see how this is relevant anymore. And to insist that I jump on a forum board immediately and call someone evil is a straight-up exaggeration anyways. I'm flattered that you recognize my username, but I do not like personal attacks. Listen, it was the first time we had to resolve something like this. It took us a few days to clarify the licensing. I may have said some dumb things on the mailing list out of misunderstanding of the GPL. I also had a heated community to represent. Finally, I am not responsible for the license LMMS is under. However, I actually contribute my code to LMMS, not to some PGIB-Branch that costs $20 a month.

I've been working on LMMS for 2 years (not as much, or as hard, as Toby, the main developer). In that time, we had one artist donate artwork, one plugin donated, and one developer (Andy Kelley) who dabbles in the project. This BeatMachinePro affair is very recent. I don't think it is the reason for poor-sponsorship considering we have always had a small volume of contributions (time and money). Also, Toby is the one who receives donations, and according to him, he has received very little over the last few years.

Maybe you shouldn't be surprised then if you don't get much money...

I got heated when someone tried to capitalize off of our project without sharing improvements / profits, but then I decided to let it go. Please do explain to me why I should expect to not receive much money at this point.

Anyways, I'm very interested in seeing what happens with this proposal. Hopefully we will not let personal politics get in the way again.

[pgib]

Hey, guys! Let's not turn this thread into personal flaming and focus on the subject please.

Paul, great, that is a good thing that you would be willing to take a couple of weeks off. Then now what we all need to know is the goal - the amount of money needed for, say, those two weeks.

Yes, as well as the features that the community values the most.

[studio32]

[OT]@pgib, I'm glad you think different now about that case. It was also not only to you, but to the whole FLOSS community who overreacts often imho when such things happens. Anyway let's forget this case for now

Welcome at the forum and we will be happy to see LMMS grow! If it gets better jack support it will, I'm sure. There are people who prefers all in one apps like LMMS, great and if they want donate, great too because time and coding is not always free...[/OT]

[Louigi Verona]

Okay, so how shall we proceed now?

First off, Paul - please do calculate the costs of two weeks work - I want to understand at what kind of money are we looking at.
Second - the features and all that. I think that for the start even working on LMMS according to the already existing plan is fine for the first attempt.

Third - addressed donating. If you say that the Donate button on the sourceforge does not send money to you, then you should set up or point to your PayPal account and make it visible.
Perhaps, we can call this something - like, a coding sprint. So we can set up a sprints page on the website where a counter will be set up like they have at Ardour site and show how much money is required and how much is already there. The PayPal button leading to the correct account should also be there.

[raindog469]

Regarding Jack support - it is something that we are trying to improve. Infact, right now we are rewriting huge portions of our code to better support songs with timesignature and tempo changes

I know most people seem to want improved JACK support, but I do everything in non-real-time and the promise of improved time signature and tempo change support is a lot more appealing to me. Thanks for working on that too.

Rob

[StudioDave]

re: linuxaudio.org

... they are not very active in actually supporting development.

I'm a charter member of the organization, though I don't really do much for it these days. However, IIRC direct support of developers is not an aspect of the group's purpose. I don't think it's been ruled out, but it's a difficult topic (as this thread indicates).

And don't reply to emails either.

My apologies for that. Unfortunately I don't recall seeing email from you to linuxaudio.org. Please re-send if you have a question or comment, I'll look for it and make sure it's properly routed and replied to.

Best,

dp

[spm_gl]

direct support of developers is not an aspect of the group's purpose.

I realize that, I'm just saying linuxaudio.org already provides the basic infrastructure, i.e. a consortium of interested parties. Thus it would be a lot simpler to implement financial support through linuxaudio.org than founding a new organization for this purpose.

My email was regarding membership, quite a while ago. I'll send a new one in due course, busy making a business plan for a second company, so I'm rather distracted

[Louigi Verona]

Yeah.

So? I personally am awaiting a response from Paul.

[pgib]

Louigi, sorry I got pulled into a few things the last few days.

First off, Paul - please do calculate the costs of two weeks work - I want to understand at what kind of money are we looking at.

80 hours.. we are probably talking about 2100USD we can work out specifics later.

Third - addressed donating. If you say that the Donate button on the sourceforge does not send money to you, then you should set up or point to your PayPal account and make it visible.

Actually I was just saying I haven't received anything from it /yet/. Ironically, shortly after we received this: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue ... 7#donation We actually split this amount up. Anyways, I'm not doing this all for the money (obviously)

[Louigi Verona]

80 hours.. we are probably talking about 2100USD we can work out specifics later.

Good. I am not sure what specifics do you mean, but I will look at how much money I can get to support monthly. It won't be too much, I think around 100$ a month I can provide.

Should I set up a page somewhere reflecting this in some way? Or can someone else do it?

[pgib]

Please wait until I' confirm everything on Monday. I need to make sure I can take that much time off at once. Maybe it will be one week on, one week off, etc.. Or perhaps 20hrs/wk of both for a month.

Also, I need to double check everything and make sure I am considering insurance, tax, other things properly. I will have to pay out-of-pocket for these items since I won't be working fulltime. This shouldn't be a huge deal initially, but could become so overtime.

[pgib]

Whoa... I totally forgot about all of this

We are pretty busy at work, but I can probably take time off for LMMS. especially if we get another worker soon.

-Paul