Donations

[cybertron]

I have searched the forums and only found 2 mentions of donates both of which were turned down. I didnt bother checking when those posts were made, but either way, I think a donation system would be a good idea. I'm sure there is a bit of logistics to be worked out in that department, but at least it could go to hosting this site, hosting forums, etc..

The reason I think donations are really important is because I dont want to see what happened to the original sab, happen to this one. Albeit, this community seems to have really taken off where the other never really had a chance to before the author had to split.

I use sab religiously... seriously, i use it more than I read my bible! (mental note... change that.) But my point is, sab is a huge part of my life, and I know that seems a bit dramatic, but seriously, in this day... I wouldnt be caught dead downloading a torrent. And with sab at my side, I can download anything! (euphemism intended). It is just nice to have the freedom to not think about news the way we (some) all used to have to deal with it.

Anyway, I think i've made my point. I'm in love with Sab and I never want to see it die. (although, i'd rather it not grow so popular that it becomes a target either  )

So who can I give my cold hard cash to?

[neilt0]

The problem with taking donations is that people might start feeling entitled to make demands.

I'm already amazed when I see people complaining about "missing features" for a product they paid nothing for!

[inpheaux]

The problem with taking donations is that people might start feeling entitled to make demands.

Well, there's that, but there's also the issue of us not being entirely sure how to most fairly divide up donations. It's easy to take donations if you're a single-developer project, or if you've got a company involved, but we don't have either.

We narrowed it down to five people who could make some kind of valid claim on donation money:
People making checkins (Shypike, Switch, Pairofdimes)
The guy providing webhosting and managing Wordpress/the Forums/etc (me)
The only other guy who wrote code for the project (tdian, even though no one has heard from him forever he's still responsible for a lot of the code we use)

But then we couldn't sort out how fairly divvy up cash. I mean, unless you can quantify your contribution to the project with a percentage it's not going to be fair. Since none of us are really hurting for cash we decided to just pass on the idea for the moment.

However, I just remembered that way down at the bottom of my to-do list was "figure out a fair way to handle donations", and I've sorta completed the rest of said to-do list, so I guess I better get to work on that.

[DeXeS]

But why not accepting only donations for the things where you really spend money on like webhosting. but indeed i agree that some people may demand things because they donated...

[cybertron]

The problem with taking donations is...

Yeah, i can understand the dilemma. Well, lets not split you guys up over money either. Maybe put money toward things that actually cost like the above guy said. But at the same time, it may just be best to leave things the way they are. I just enjoy Sab and hope everyone who is putting their time in is ok with doing so. I know open source is all about the giving back and stuff, but I just wonder sometimes if people dont harbor some resentment or whatever.

Either way... GREAT work with the software and know that you've made my life much easier w/ SAB.

[inpheaux]

But why not accepting only donations for the things where you really spend money on like webhosting. but indeed i agree that some people may demand things because they donated...

The problem then is that all the money comes to me, and that feels Wrong, because all I do is host stuff and help people. I don't want to rake in cash when Shypike and Switch are the guys making it actually go.

[cybertron]

Yeah, lets scrap this idea... if hardware is needed, we can revisit the idea. Seems like more trouble than its worth if everyone is happy. Definitely not trying to stir things up.