Donating money to specific parts of MP?

[ziphnor]

This might seem a bit selfish, but i was wondering if it is possible to make donations to the MP project 'targeted' at certain areas of MP.

For example, i use DVB(-C) based HTPC, and would like to see more work on stability of DVB in general(especially CI/CAM and pay TV), support for DVB subtitles etc. Im not looking for the option to 'buy' development of a certain feature, but maybe to encourage work on specific aspects of MP by donations.

I guess for some people might also be interested in getting/improving support for a specific piece of hardware this way.

Im probably going to make a modest donation anyway, but i was just wondering.

Also, i think that if you made the option to donate just slightly more prominent, you would get a lot more donations.

[mPod]

No, this is not possible, as you don't donate to a special developer or for a special feature, but to the project in general.
No developer benefits directly from any money donated, it's to keep the infrastructure running, e.g. when sending hardware around the globe and many other things.
Money is not the thing that makes us invest our time into the project, btw. As said, it just helps getting things done that cost some money.

FYI, we had one topic in the team some time ago, about the "Rent-A-Dev" idea, that would be something like your above mentioned one. But that has been dropped immediately by all developers in the team in an online meeting, nobody of us was interested in that.

[Smirnuff]

I've seen this in other open source projects. Often referred to as a bounty where a user or group of users provide the specifics of the feature they require and a starting price and it all goes from there.

The big problem lies in the fact that many users don't know just how much work is required, often for what seems to be the simplest of features, and as such make offers that fail to catch anybody's interest, i.e. $20 for a feature that takes two weeks to implement and test correctly.

The bounty is supposed to act as encouragment off course rather than a fee .

[mPod]

Well, that implies another problem that we discussed and why we dropped that idea. Let's say Agree did the base for digital TV, Frodo extended it for BDA, now developer XY get's rented for implementing a new card and gets money for it. What about Frodo & Agree then? Shouldn't they be paid as well then? You see that you cannot do that in a project like MediaPortal. That's why we commonly dropped the idea very shortly after it came up.

[ziphnor]

I can definetly see the problem something like this would pose. Still, i just imagine a situation where a small group of people would like a specific feature(say a special type of DVB subtitle or solving an issue with a specific DVB-C tuner), in that case it would be nice to be able to donate some money towards looking into this, no strings attached. Even though the money wouldnt go to the dev. who implemented/fixed it but to the project itself, seeing people wanting something badly enough to pay for it, might inspire developers to look into it.

What about donating or borrowing the team a piece of hardware one would like supported?

[elliottmc]

Not that I want to do this, but would there actually be anything preventing a user contracting a 3rd party developer to add a feature to MP. Of course, this presumes that the developer would then add their contribution to the SVN.

In practise it would not be remotely cost-effective, as it would take a new developer weeks to get up to speed on the code!

Mark

[smnnekho]

Originally Posted by elliottmc

Not that I want to do this, but would there actually be anything preventing a user contracting a 3rd party developer to add a feature to MP. Of course, this presumes that the developer would then add their contribution to the SVN.

In practise it would not be remotely cost-effective, as it would take a new developer weeks to get up to speed on the code!

Mark

Note that i have no knowledge of all the law-related stuff but in the end i don't think that anybody from the devs want or even could prevent something like that. i'm not sure if any user would do something of that, in fact he must be very rich (-;

but as far as i'm concerned the 'rented programmer' wouldn't have all the rights for parts added to MP that he surely is used to have when he's working. simply since it's under public licence. that could really end in some problems.

another thing is it, when user know some programmer and ask i'm to programm a plugin e.g. or something similar. i've seen that in the past and i don't think that he got some money for it (-;

[mPod]

Originally Posted by ziphnor

What about donating or borrowing the team a piece of hardware one would like supported?

That always has been possible and will always be, of course. But you won't get a guarantee that there is a developer in the team that has the knowledge/time/interest to implement that part. Chance are there, of course, just no guarantee. Of course, if you intend to donate a piece of hardware, the project manager would talk to you about if it's possible at all or not, you wouldn't donate hardware "blindly".

Originally Posted by elliottmc

would there actually be anything preventing a user contracting a 3rd party developer to add a feature to MP

No, there wouldn't be a problem at all. You just have to find one. Note that this wouldn't be related to the MP team.

Originally Posted by smnnekho

but as far as i'm concerned the 'rented programmer' wouldn't have all the rights for parts added to MP that he surely is used to have when he's working. simply since it's under public licence. that could really end in some problems.

There is no problem at all in it. It's crystal clear, the license clearly states that all derived work has to be opened to the public. So every line of code this "paid" developer would create would have to be given to the team & put into SVN. As soon as a dev starts to work on MP source, he agrees to this license.

See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL as a reference.

[Commodore 64]

Loaning hardware is a nice way to help out. I have a couple of ATSC cards that have visited Ohio, Washington, and now soon Texas in order to help with ATSC development and testing.

This method works too because ATSC is working pretty well these days.

This is no small investment, it is abut $250 worth of hardware plus the cost of shipping whenever they go somewhere else. But since I can't code, but really wish to contribute to MP, this is something that I am happy to do.

The other thing that I would like to stress is patience. You guys have to be patient. There is not a single person working on MP that gets paid for their efforts or doesn't have a full time job. And many have families too. Just keep that in mind, please.

[ziphnor]

Originally Posted by Commodore 64

The other thing that I would like to stress is patience. You guys have to be patient. There is not a single person working on MP that gets paid for their efforts or doesn't have a full time job. And many have families too. Just keep that in mind, please.

Im fully aware of this, and i have actually submitted fixes for a few bugs myself. Im not demanding anything, im just looking for ways to influence the priority of different aspects of MP in the development.

The reason im currently using MP and not something else is not that its free(as in you dont pay for it), but because it supports DVB-C, Ogg Vorbis music files and because it has a proper setup(as opposed to MCE which treats you like an idiot and refuses to work anyway). The fact thats its open-source is also a major attraction as i know i can always try to solve problems myself, or add features which i find necessary. MP is a great program, but as always, you have to look to the competition, MCE especially, and they are also moving forward. If some other product manages to support the same features and work more stable, then i will be forced to switch to something else. However, i doubt this will happen anytime soon, which is why i prefer donating some time and money to MP.