Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:55 am Post subject: Re: not overly novel but..
Chris c wrote:
Have you considered writing Larry Ellison?
Can Base interact with the latest Oracle stuff (and others)? If so, that would actually be a reason to go after database vendors... _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
I'm not an expert about fundraising, but I would like to give my (instinctive) opinion about the possible ways of active approaches for collecting funds (sorry for my broken English) :
pluby wrote:
Some simple active approaches that I can think of that wouldn't require a huge amount of labor are:
1. Give away stuff depending on the donation size e.g. $100 gets you a Neo/J T-Shirt or CD, etc. and advertise this stuff on the donation page.
2. Send out regular press releases (anyone know how to issue press releases that sites will see?) to keep Neo/J in the news. This expands the user base and the pool of potential small donors.
3. Make the Neo/J donation page suggest a bottom amount. I haven't figured out how to configure PayPal's input page to allow an editable amount, but this might increase the average donation size. Surprisingly, Neo/J receives a lot of $1 - $5 donations.
4. Make Neo/J nag a little more if you haven't donated. Right now, getting the donation page to pop up is not automatic. Instead, a couple of things must happen before the donation page appears.
Patrick
[/quote]
1: Don't know. It woud not interest me, anyway.
2: Always good. Increasing audience means increasing money, of course !
About 3: Please don't !!! It would only give the false impression that you despise people who have not money enougn to make big donations...
4: Good idea, if it's not exagerated. It woud be intrusive if you remind us of it each day. For example, recalling it once a week ?
Well, let me just 2 things that might help found raise a little more money.
1° Learn to say thank you !
I am on of those person that made a small USD 15 donation with paypall. This is not a lot for you, but in my country and for my salary (about USD 300 a month) it does count.
Getting a small thank you email, even an automated one would have been nice. I would have been more welling to donate on a regular basis
Also, a lot of shareware or donation ware are setting up a list of donator's name. This might be a way to motivate people
2° Add along to your foundation rewrite the 2 or 3 things users have been asking for in order to get better "Mac" behavior:
- mostly (in my books) native MacOS open and save dialog box
- eventually MacOS windows scroll bar, colors...
3° Earlier, there was a suggestion to organize bids to have people suggestion prioritized... I thought that it was a good idea. For example each quarter select functions that could be implemented in few weeks, list them and the top one (or every one wining more than XX USD) would get in during the following quarter. The same mechanism could be done each year or twice a year on more complex issues
1° Learn to say thank you !
I am on of those person that made a small USD 15 donation with paypall. This is not a lot for you, but in my country and for my salary (about USD 300 a month) it does count.
Getting a small thank you email, even an automated one would have been nice. I would have been more welling to donate on a regular basis
When you finish inputting your payment into the PayPal site, PayPal should redirect your browser to http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/thankyou.php so that you get a "thank you" localized into your language. Is this redirection broken?
Kosice wrote:
2° Add along to your foundation rewrite the 2 or 3 things users have been asking for in order to get better "Mac" behavior:
- mostly (in my books) native MacOS open and save dialog box
- eventually MacOS windows scroll bar, colors...
3° Earlier, there was a suggestion to organize bids to have people suggestion prioritized... I thought that it was a good idea. For example each quarter select functions that could be implemented in few weeks, list them and the top one (or every one wining more than XX USD) would get in during the following quarter. The same mechanism could be done each year or twice a year on more complex issues
I would much rather work on the items that you list. However, the reality is that Java 1.3.1 grows more and more unstable with each Mac OS X update or release. Basically, Java 1.3.1 is like the foundation of a house. If the foundation is breaking, it needs to be fixed first or else the house is no longer usable. Remodeling the kitchen and buying new furniture first could lead to a beautical house with you cannot live in.
So I've thought about this for about a week now and haven't come up with any brilliant ideas (winning the lottery and selling Krispy Kremes aside). But I do have some random thoughts to add.
It became apparent to me somewhere in the 1.1 Alpha cycle that the current state of Patrick and Ed working in spare time was unmaintainable. The number of users and bug reports were increasing dramatically (both good things in the abstract, but not so much for the time of our intrepid programmers). So to me the amount of money is mostly irrelevant; either we find some way to keep a fairly steady flow of donations or Neo/J dev at some point essentially will cease
I'm pleased to see that re-enabling the "registration" dialogue in Patch-7 has 1) generated a small spike in donations and 2) has so far registered no complaints and only one puzzled question on trinity. In OOo it comes up anew every time one installs a new version; does this mean it will come up anew every time one installs a new patch in Neo/J or just a new "full install" (RC, Final, 1.5 Alpha, etc.)?
If nothing "conventional" works (or we can't come up with any brilliant ideas), I did come across this, which is certainly easy to try.
Also, along the lines of some of the things JKT mentioned
JKT wrote:
Also, aim to have at least one major new feature per release (such as the addition of drag and drop or the use of native menus were for prior releases) that the Apple press and e.g. Slashdot can focus upon.
Patrick might consider including a small note about donations in certain of the "patch update" emails. I thought of this particularly for Patch-8, since Patrick's just fixed one of the long-standing annoyances (red button quits Neo/J) which, while not a "major feature" per se, is still a significant advancement in Neo-usability and Aquafication, and it will stand out as such among the dozens of other bugs that not everyone might notice (curses to the Mac OS X text layout routines, indeed ).
JKT wrote:
Quote:
2. Send out regular press releases (anyone know how to issue press releases that sites will see?) to keep Neo/J in the news. This expands the user base and the pool of potential small donors.
Speaking generally:
One (free) way to keep yourself on the Mac users radar is to post your updates on Versiontracker/Macupdate far more often than you currently do. Perhaps it would be worthwhile announcing the patches on those sites as well as the less frequent .1 updates. [...] Another would be to make more frequent announcements on the trinity home page and somehow have those get featured on www.macsurfer.com whenever they occur.
[...]
I try and do it myself, but making official announcements for each of the new patches on Mac forums would also help draw traffic to the project.
Aside from the posts on the trinity home page, all of our "PR" activities have been "community-generated" (or simply picked up by the Mac news/update sites). We missed an opportunity to send something to MacInTouch shortly after Beta was released (for the new year) because I was gone and no one sent in the release I had drafted. I do think we need to do more of this, and in a more "coordinated" fashion. I've been a bit disappointed that not only has no one mentioned/PMed/etc. me for access to the Neo/J Community Relations account to help out with this but also that no one has even added sites we should target to that list. My point here is that an increased "press presence" is too much to add to Patrick and Ed's already full plates and is too much for one (other) person alone.
Generally, we need some more volunteers to step up and help out *a little* here and there. We have the same half-dozen people (largely) answering forum posts, improving the wiki, and so forth. Part of this does seem to be synonomous with the larger problems of Mac OOo. Even Eric and Eric's new recruits have only managed (at least from what I can see publicly) to fix bugs keeping OOo 2.0 from building on the Mac; all the old Mac-specific patches/fixes are missing (cmd-key, printing, UTF-8 filenames, etc.) and no one seems to have jumped into the code at the level of Patrick or Ed or Dan or Kevin and fixed real OOo "bugs" or added "features." I had hoped that some of the new folks that wanted to improve the Mac experience would start building Neo and learning from Patrick and Ed's work. This bodes ill for the maintainability of the X11 build, not to mention Neo/J, in the future... (Same old problem, I know. But now in the context of even simple stuff like helping with publicity). We have the problem of a public good combined with the fact that there's a smaller percentage (let alone absolute numbers) of Mac users who are programmers in comparison with Windows, Linux, and other open-source host platforms....
And eventually Patrick and Ed are going to want to sail off into the sunset....
Um, I went rambling, didn't I?
JKT wrote:
In addition think about using the deployment of NOJ in the Scouts head office(?) by whoever it was here (sorry, forgotten their name) as a piece of positive PR that can be released to the Apple press (akin to the Apple website's hot news stories). Evidently that would need the Scouts permission, but that is a good bit of press for both organisations. Edit: It was rays (e.g. here or here)
I really like this idea, too. I'd also be interested to see if there are other migration stories (even Neo/J as part of a cross-platform OOo migration). A couple of little blurbs and quotes like this probably warrant a new page on planamesa.com/neojava (right next to the Donations one) called something like "User Comments" (or not, perhaps something better-sounding). We also have code that will pull our current VersionTracker and MacUpdate ratings (and reviews) if that's something people think should be included on such a page, too.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
1° Learn to say thank you !
I am on of those person that made a small USD 15 donation with paypall. This is not a lot for you, but in my country and for my salary (about USD 300 a month) it does count.
Getting a small thank you email, even an automated one would have been nice. I would have been more welling to donate on a regular basis
When you finish inputting your payment into the PayPal site, PayPal should redirect your browser to http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/thankyou.php so that you get a "thank you" localized into your language. Is this redirection broken?
Kosice wrote:
2° Add along to your foundation rewrite the 2 or 3 things users have been asking for in order to get better "Mac" behavior:
- mostly (in my books) native MacOS open and save dialog box
- eventually MacOS windows scroll bar, colors...
3° Earlier, there was a suggestion to organize bids to have people suggestion prioritized... I thought that it was a good idea. For example each quarter select functions that could be implemented in few weeks, list them and the top one (or every one wining more than XX USD) would get in during the following quarter. The same mechanism could be done each year or twice a year on more complex issues
I would much rather work on the items that you list. However, the reality is that Java 1.3.1 grows more and more unstable with each Mac OS X update or release. Basically, Java 1.3.1 is like the foundation of a house. If the foundation is breaking, it needs to be fixed first or else the house is no longer usable. Remodeling the kitchen and buying new furniture first could lead to a beautical house with you cannot live in.
Does that make sense?
Patrick
Patrick,
I don't remember getting this screen after donating. I guess it is working now.
I perfectly understand the foundation issue. Doing a bit of project management, point 2 and 3 are key to "change management" rules.
You need to spice up the cake to get your user base welling to live through the re-foundation time. OOo 2.0 is a BIG one.
I don't know how major things lies being the items in my list. It is just to illustrate that getting Java foundation fixed might not be enough from an end user "sponsor" point of view.
OOo 1.1.5 support could be one of them (I think that this version brings compatibility with OOo 2 file format), something your corporate "customers" will be happy to found to get their Mac users able to work along their PC colleagues
Thanks again for your great work...
One last thing:
Is it possible to set up "subscription donation" with Paypall.? Maybe people would be happy to subscribe to a $10 per month donation? Especially if this "subscription" is linked to a NeoJ magazine with tips and tricks. I often read non developer people wanting to contribute. Could those "power user" create a NeoJ newsletter ?
I don't know how major things lies being the items in my list. It is just to illustrate that getting Java foundation fixed might not be enough from an end user "sponsor" point of view.
OOo 1.1.5 support could be one of them (I think that this version brings compatibility with OOo 2 file format), something your corporate "customers" will be happy to found to get their Mac users able to work along their PC colleagues.
Good point. Maybe I am just worrying too much about the upcoming Mac OS X Tiger release. Maybe the best thing to do is focus on things that I can solve within our existing donations and then worry about any Tiger problems once Tiger is out. My guess is that if Neo/J has major problems in Tiger, then I may have an easier time convincing Apple to donate money or, better yet, engineering time to help us move off of Java 1.3.1.
Kosice wrote:
One last thing:
Is it possible to set up "subscription donation" with Paypall.? Maybe people would be happy to subscribe to a $10 per month donation? Especially if this "subscription" is linked to a NeoJ magazine with tips and tricks. I often read non developer people wanting to contribute. Could those "power user" create a NeoJ newsletter ?
I am a PayPal novice so I don't know the answer. Does anybody else know the answer?
It became apparent to me somewhere in the 1.1 Alpha cycle that the current state of Patrick and Ed working in spare time was unmaintainable. The number of users and bug reports were increasing dramatically (both good things in the abstract, but not so much for the time of our intrepid programmers). So to me the amount of money is mostly irrelevant; either we find some way to keep a fairly steady flow of donations or Neo/J dev at some point essentially will cease
Very good point. Although it is a continual problem that it is only Ed and I doing the Neo/J development and a few other people doing X11 builds, having only a handful of developers is actually very normal for most open-source projects.
Ideally, the following would probably be more effective in the long run than getting a big huge donation:
- Getting Apple to dedicate an engineer to moving Neo/J off of Java 1.3.1.
- Really making use of the volunteers that Neo/J already has.
The first item is easy persue and likely hard to obtain, but the second item is something that we are doing now and can do more of.
For example, the Apple Script help installer and the custom menu configurations are things that users will really notice but they don't require a C++ developer to implement. The point is that many of you know ways to make things work that I don't. I am a developer so, unfortunately, I cannot always see a simpler solution that you might see.
In other words, if you implement some feature that others might find cool, put it out there. Don't worry if it isn't on the "official" Neo/J web pages and don't worry if it isn't perfect. If enough people like it, we can figure out how to link it to the Neo/J download site or bundle it with Neo/J.
Remember, this is open-source and you don't need Ed or my approval to try something. In fact, the more that people are trying to make the user experience better without C++ code, the more time that I can focus on what I do best: fixing C++ bugs and implementing core OOo features into Neo/J.
sardisson wrote:
Patrick might consider including a small note about donations in certain of the "patch update" emails. I thought of this particularly for Patch-8, since Patrick's just fixed one of the long-standing annoyances (red button quits Neo/J) which, while not a "major feature" per se, is still a significant advancement in Neo-usability and Aquafication, and it will stand out as such among the dozens of other bugs that not everyone might notice (curses to the Mac OS X text layout routines, indeed ).
I think you suggestion is a good one. The "closing last window quits Neo/J" fix is a feature that we can really push out to any site that will listen. Also, it will help get the word out that to users that don't know about patches to download the patch.
sardisson wrote:
Aside from the posts on the trinity home page, all of our "PR" activities have been "community-generated" (or simply picked up by the Mac news/update sites). We missed an opportunity to send something to MacInTouch shortly after Beta was released (for the new year) because I was gone and no one sent in the release I had drafted. I do think we need to do more of this, and in a more "coordinated" fashion. I've been a bit disappointed that not only has no one mentioned/PMed/etc. me for access to the Neo/J Community Relations account to help out with this but also that no one has even added sites we should target to that list. My point here is that an increased "press presence" is too much to add to Patrick and Ed's already full plates and is too much for one (other) person alone.
I have a tendency to not do enough of the PR work. I keep telling myself that I will do it "after I fix just one more bug." Seriously, for "Patch-8" (which I will probably release tomorrow), I will put something on the Trinity home page that highlights the new "closing last window no longer quits Neo/J" feature. Could you push this news to any of the sites that you can update like VersionTracker, etc.?
Like my comment about putting out code even if it isn't perfect, feel free to post any Neo/J news that you wish to. You don't need Ed or my approval. In fact, there are many people who have no problem publishing their dislike of Neo/J so why not let the world know what you think? Neo/J isn't perfect and it probably never will be so anybody is entitled to criticize or applaud Neo/J however they see fit.
I've submitted Patch-8 update notices to VersionTracker, MacUpdate, and Freshmeat (as well as our own wiki Release Notes page). Hopefully they'll appear soon.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
I've submitted Patch-8 update notices to VersionTracker, MacUpdate, and Freshmeat (as well as our own wiki Release Notes page). Hopefully they'll appear soon.
Thanks for doing this! BTW, feel free to suggest any wording changes. My announcements tend to be written quickly without much thought and I can easily update the Trinity home page.
Joined: May 31, 2003 Posts: 219 Location: French Alps
Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 4:59 pm Post subject:
A short comment about PR.
I stay away of this matter, not only because I don't enjoy doing it, but mainly because it's twice the work, for me, to do it in English.
Definitely Smokey has earned its title on this field, even if feel lonesome sometime.
But I'll do some toward french press which often write about OOo but does not seems to knows NeoJ.
BTW, the language handicap is also keeping away of really verbose or flaming topics like the OOo/neoJ battle, etc...
4: Good idea, if it's not exagerated. It woud be intrusive if you remind us of it each day. For example, recalling it once a week ?
NO ! If I am in a very bad bitching mood and I need to write something very unpleasant very quickly such a reminder to give money will slow me without making me give any money, because it only makes me angry. I might even look in extreme cases for alternatives which do not bug me this way.
HOWEVER, if a reminder is appearing everytime I install a patch (which I chose to install), I will be in a much more positive mood "Oh these cool guys are fixing bugs that are bugging me. It's so cool to do that for free that I will give money". And as patches are sent two or three times a month, I think it is a reasonable frequency.
A short comment about PR.
I stay away of this matter, not only because I don't enjoy doing it, but mainly because it's twice the work, for me, to do it in English.
My hope when I started (and then began laying things out in the wiki) is that we could get one or two people per language/region/country who would target the sites appropriate for them (and have some general coordination on the wiki so we're all listing/submitting roughly the same info on rougly the same schedule). I could do PR in French, too, but it would be at least four times the work for me since my French is very weak and rusty and I don't know the sites. This way--at least once we get there--each person can contribute where he or she is the best
Max_Barel wrote:
Definitely Smokey has earned its title on this field, even if feel lonesome sometime.
Max_Barel wrote:
But I'll do some toward french press which often write about OOo but does not seems to knows NeoJ.
Merci beaucoup!
Max_Barel wrote:
BTW, the language handicap is also keeping away of really verbose or flaming topics like the OOo/neoJ battle, etc...
C'est dommage
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
I've just been looking at the patch 8 refs on VersionTracker and MacUpdate to see what people are saying about the app - pretty positive.
One thing though: the MU page needs editing, because although it's for the patch installer, it says the file size is 112Mb. this might put people off by implying that they have to d/l the whole app every time there's an update.
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