[NewIdea]A new way to push ReactOS Development [NewIdea]

[vicmarcal]

Nice numbers
Thanks for your support and initiative DOSGuy!

[Murmur]

Donations are great but the real money will come from corporation donations and I doubt that will come till we can get the project a bit more streamlined and organized.

I am hoping that we can get a proper PR team which can lobby businesses to donate a sum which would make other companies to want to donate as well.

Ideas:
-Donation page for companies & people who have donated
-Notification of what their money is doing

[SomeGuy]

Donations are great but the real money will come from corporation

Until then I think it is important to play up the education aspect of ReactOS. It's perfect for any student who wants to get some system level programming experience on an actual OS (paid or not). That is how Linux started out, and you see where that is now.

[vicmarcal]

Donations are great but the real money will come from corporation donations and I doubt that will come till we can get the project a bit more streamlined and organized.

I am hoping that we can get a proper PR team which can lobby businesses to donate a sum which would make other companies to want to donate as well.

Ideas:
-Donation page for companies & people who have donated
-Notification of what their money is doing

Uhmm..I am not agree in "the real money will come from corporation donations".
A perfect example is Haiku: There isn't corporation donations nowadays and they are moving forward so fast. Their community is supporting the development, and the community grows as the OS improves.Of course they will have corporation donations sooner or later, but just after reaching a high level of quality.
The problem is moving the "wheel", and the thing is (instead sidetracking the responsability of donations to corporations) are we going/do we want to move it?

[Drazic]

Uhmm..I am not agree in "the real money will come from corporation donations".
A perfect example is Haiku

Uhhmm.. If you look at Haiku's donation stats you will see that the largest part of the 23.000 they raised, came from companies. For example, Haikuware donated 10.000, that's halve of everything they raised.

So, I absolutely agree that we should not focus on getting $10 donations from fans, but getting substantial amounts from corporations and foundations.

[vicmarcal]

If you look at Haiku's donation stats you will see that the largest part of the 23.000 they raised, came from companies. For example, Haikuware donated 10.000, that's halve of everything they raised.

Hmm..Iirc Haikuware and Haiku is exactly the same. Haikuware is the "side of the Fundation" that controls the "Bounties" system, so those 10.000 are coming from donations but via Haikuware.It is not a company as far as I know
Haikuware sets bounties to projects (as our CFI) and when a project reaches the expiry date and no dev has assigned to him the money donated to the project is redirected to Haiku general accordingly to: http://haikuware.com/bounties

"Expiry - The date that application to a bounty closes to developers (6 months after it started). After, any money collected in the failed bounty is moved into the general fund."

So maybe some projects have expired this month and that money (which comes from Community donations) has been sent to Haiku. This is a perfect example to show how CFI doesn't work neither in big projects as Haiku is.

As far as I can tell, there is no other way Haikuware collects money.

[Murmur]

Either way, we can change a lot to help with these issues. Like a fundraiser goal

[Witch]

Keeping things SIMPLE
I think that the ReactOS-push-Team should keep things SIMPLE and not over-think things too much in the starting phase, and just do!
Then when specific problems arises we can solve it all together and incorporate all the mentioned rules and criteria step by step, module by module.
We don't want to make the same mistake of over-thinking things too much like in the History of ReactOS.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Early_development:_FreeWin95_to_ReactOS

Early development: FreeWin95 to ReactOS

Around 1996, a group of free and open source software developers started a project called FreeWin95 to implement a clone of Windows 95. The project stalled in discussions of the design of the system.

While FreeWin95 had started out with high expectations, there still hadn't been any builds released to the public by the end of 1997.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complex, therefore simplicity should be a key goal in design and unnecessary complexity should be avoided.

Code: Select all

1. $ Init [NewIdea];
2. $ Improve [NewIdea];
3. $ echo "Happy faces :)";


[wildschwein]

My Opinion: The community is willing to spend money, but the appeal on the web-side is to "weak". I am very hot to spend regular, but I must also be motivated, to see "ah...yes...it's going on...so i throw another 10 Euros in this pot at the end of the month".

I spend regular some money for two organisation that help people. I read there websides and see, that there are things going on !
ReactOS needs also both, a kind of "meter" or "reports" from a part-project, thats supported with donations. Nothing is more motivation to spend regular, when you see a bar, that is on 50% and the next month it is on 55%, and the next month on 69%

I also see a problem, to pay only some devs, and the rest should work for nothing, but I am truly convinced, that there a lot of reactos fans out there, how wants to spend gladly - because they can't help neither with programming or testing because of lack of time or knowledge - like me

So: Start to build an "infrastructure" for better fund-raising - the money is there, it only "waits" for a ReactOS-bag, that collects it ! Why not try to use that was used in Haiku-Project...

This infrastructure must be more demonstative on the web-page - even Wikipedia has one, clear at the front page...

(50 Euros from me, as an "initial donation", as soon as an infrastructur is there !)

[wildschwein]

One point i must affiliate with an opion before.

Don't think to much, keep it simple, but JUST DO IT !

[vicmarcal]

We are on it ...Gimme 48hours to React the OS

[Balords]

Donated 3€

[Witch]

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Are you going to help this by starting to donate and to spread the word so that any one else you know can donate(in case you dont have coins in your pockets) ?
These are the picky questions we have to face now
I still think the same,5-10 dollars once is nothing but a lot of 5 dollars donnors means ReactOS progress!

Donation and PR are two different things
Another thing that I think gets overshadowed by all this money talk is the spread the word part. They need to be treated as two very separate things. It doesn't matter if the ROS basket contains 1$ or 1 million dollars the news will only be spread in very narrow PR channels like BBC Tech, OSNews, The Register and sites like that.
Regular folks on the streets that only uses PCs for fun don't follow such news sites (I don't even have the time to follow them on a regular basis). The PR effect will always be close to zero.

There NEEDS to be a specific "Unofficial PR talks" folder created on these forums ASAP. Where people can create, suggest, debate and discuss on various PR solutions. In the end the ROS devs will have the final say when discussing the Official PR releases in more private channels like IRC and mailing lists. But having a platform where anybody on the Internet can discuss various PR solutions is very vital.

Documenting such talks on "General Discussion" and "Off Topic" folders only leads to dissipation of all the PR discussion information in the midst of the noise not related to PR talks.

[mrugiero]

...
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Are you going to help this by starting to donate and to spread the word so that any one else you know can donate(in case you dont have coins in your pockets) ?
These are the picky questions we have to face now
I still think the same,5-10 dollars once is nothing but a lot of 5 dollars donnors means ReactOS progress!

Donation and PR are two different things
Another thing that I think gets overshadowed by all this money talk is the spread the word part. They need to be treated as two very separate things. It doesn't matter if the ROS basket contains 1$ or 1 million dollars the news will only be spread in very narrow PR channels like BBC Tech, OSNews, The Register and sites like that.
Regular folks on the streets that only uses PCs for fun don't follow such news sites (I don't even have the time to follow them on a regular basis). The PR effect will always be close to zero.

There NEEDS to be a specific "Unofficial PR talks" folder created on these forums ASAP. Where people can create, suggest, debate and discuss on various PR solutions. In the end the ROS devs will have the final say when discussing the Official PR releases in more private channels like IRC and mailing lists. But having a platform where anybody on the Internet can discuss various PR solutions is very vital.

Documenting such talks on "General Discussion" and "Off Topic" folders only leads to dissipation of all the PR discussion information in the midst of the noise not related to PR talks.

I don't fully agree. If ReactOS has enough money to pay devs and get a functional (I mean, something you can show and let use a normal user) OS, then spreading the word will become easier, because anyone knows someone else, and if you show them something free (they'll see it as free beer, probably, but that's enough) which they can use to run their games, their office suite, and their web browser without problems and without learning a new OS, then you have a viral campaign.

[Witch]

Yes that is true word of mouth marketing is the strongest PR tool there is available. But my point with the excessively long post above is this:

1. ReactOS members NEEDS a specific "Unofficial PR Talks" folder in this forum to streamline discussions.
2. Through debates and discussion in that particular forum folder, we can SHAPE practical strategies for everybody to follow.
3. When everybody knows exactly which strategies they will be executing on command by Fireball. Then the PR effect will be able to skyrocket and keep an orbital path on its own without any human intervention thereafter.