Funding R3
Would there be a way to gauge the interest in the Rebol community for hiring a programmer to continue work on R3? How much might be needed for say a 12 month contract?
posted by: Felix 19-Jul-2014/5:55:32-7:00
What would the end result be? I myself would like to see R3 available like R2. In other words, if I know I am interested in REBOL, I go to the REBOL web site (www.rebol.com) and download one file, which is the complete REBOL programming language, and I just use it. Do we know if "REBOL Technologies" still exists as a company? If they did the hiring, would Carl guide the person since he has the vision, or is Carl out of the picture for all things related to REBOL?
As a variation of your idea, one of the companies making a version of REBOL has a donations page (http://development.saphirion.com/donations/). Would it work to mobilize (somehow) enough people to make one large donation to one specific effort, with one specific result in mind? As for what "specific result," it looks like they already have a single-file download of R3 with GUI, so I myself wouldn't mind seeing a major effort for a year going into documentation.
One complete binary file of a programming language, one PDF file of a complete reference manual; Two downloads and you're in production. It would be glorious. I would pay money for that.
posted by: Steven White 19-Jul-2014/9:21:56-7:00
I think the best thing to do is talk with Cypher and perhaps Robert on AltMe. If Cypher is available, he knows what he's doing, and he has been responsive to donations in the past.
posted by: Nick 21-Jul-2014/19:58:41-7:00
I'd like to help sponsor a javascript port of R3 and R3gui, so that we can build web applications directly in Rebol.
posted by: Nick 21-Jul-2014/20:00:54-7:00
Saphirion has made great contributions to Rebol, exceptional, no doubt.
But I was suggesting that R3 needs its own site, to promote R3, for developers of R3 and for users. A site to encourage R3 itself, similar to rebol.com. A site that is an of instrument of brand identity.
The Javascript port and an R3 & manual support the need to have a clearly defined funding objective.
Funding might also be encouraged with public
accountability, and with recognition to all that contribute.
www.poll-maker.com might be used to give some indication if there is enough support to provide donations of $5, $10, $20 or $50 for an R3 objective.
posted by: Felix 27-Jul-2014/0:34:06-7:00
My two cents:
1. If you know someone who can put together a snappy, energizing video- do a kickstarter.
2. rebol should aim for the browser plugin market
"Help us make web-browsers easy to program so that regular people can take back the web."
In my humble opinion, funding software through donations in the vast majority of cases doesn't provide enough funding to achieve anything. At least with a kickstarter you either get your funding or you don't. If you do then yipee! If you don't then- no loss. The two major requirements are this; establishing credibility with the viewers, convincing them of the merit of the cause, and generally a high production value video.
posted by: Nick 1-Aug-2014/20:37:45-7:00
Those working on R3 ought to be brought into any funding and funds if thats ok with them. Otherwise, some feelings of inequity might arise.
Their input into what direction any program might take would be highly valued.
There was a browser plug-in for R2. Not sure how accepted it went over. I can see the potential for a browser plug-in, but can you elaborate?
I've been looking a some kickstarter type sites. But have no conclusions as yet. I know of one group that were not accepted in a crowdfunding site and so instead very successfully created their own funding site. I have read that one group used both Ignitiondeck and another crowdfunding site, raising twice as much on Ignitiondeck - which had minimal fees. Considerable amounts too.
As for a video, maybe that would be funding project to get started with.
How do existing R3 developers view a funding effort?
posted by: Felix 2-Aug-2014/18:06:32-7:00
Stephen makes some good points. The existing difficulty in getting a comprehensive manual could be useful. Nick's written some fine work of course, and there may be other works here and there, somewhere....
But, these references could be removed entirely!
Instead, make the R3 binary available and charge say $5 for the manual, both from a central R3 site.
Most of the revenue would go the developers, some to the manual writers, and some to a fund for the R3 site and for promotion.
I believe there were quite a few R2 downloads. If Rebol Tech had $5 for half of those downloads - obviously a lot of useful revenue.
posted by: Felix 25-Aug-2014/19:37:24-7:00
I like that idea of charging for a manual. I would pay it gladly. I get the impression that there are a lot of people for whom software must be free (as in beer). Let them download it and figure it out for themselves. As for me, take my money, please. Give me a manual.
posted by: Steven White 26-Aug-2014/11:35:19-7:00
Not to be too sassy, but I even thought of a title for the book.
As an aside, I can show my willingness to spend money on documentation by my purchases of REBOL The Official Guide, REBOL For Dummies, and REBOL A Programmer's Guide.
The title for the latest REBOL book: REBOL The Moving Target.
posted by: Steven White 26-Aug-2014/12:06:47-7:00
I, too, would pay for a comprehensive book on R3, especially if it included the popular GUI dialects like R3-GUI. I've donated a fair amount of money and an ARM computer to R3 and additional money to Red (over $1000 between the two). I find that it is helpful to donate to a specific cause on the Saphirion.com or the red-lang.org site as that lets the developers know what is important to you.
posted by: Bo 26-Aug-2014/12:54:27-7:00
If a manual on how to use R3 is a must, we might also need a manual on R3 implementation itself. So far, I've been able to download source code and compile it but it would help to have some explanations for people ready to add some features.
Regarding the funding of R3, I believe it would be efficient to first identify what we want to add or port and then talk about how to fund it to get it. Funding a year of dev. with no clear targets might be disappointing.
posted by: GregP 2-Sep-2014/9:47:37-7:00
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