Reward Those Valuable Contributors To B4A (with money)

[Harris]

Erel gets his slice for each new sign up - and rightfully so. His company is the MAIN contributor to the success of his product (and what a product it is!!).

Option 1:

However, many others, through the goodness of themselves, spend many hours furthering and developing /extending this product. This additional contribution, in the spirit of kindness and open source, leaves me feeling guilty - using what they created for nothing.

Myself in particular (and I see others), demand (humbly request) additional functionality. Others comply willingly thru some compulsion - feeling that the request is their duty, and produce our request - cause they can. They even create stuff nobody has asked for but others can use and profit from.

OK, those last two words may not have relevance - who has profited (yet) from your hard work (ie. apps)?

Cut to the chase (Erel):

Make the "Additional libraries and official updates" section a user (download) voluntarily pay section (somehow). This way, us with guilt (profiting off of others hard work), can "feel" cleansed about giving something back to those who rightfully desrve it - at our descretion.

Recently, I begged some one here to update a lib.
I don't what to resort to begging - I would like to know that the contributor will be justly reward for his/her important input - from those who appreiate and use their input.

Option 2:

You hire and pay them: I dont think u want to go there.... That is not in the spirit of User Contribution. (Borland and MicroSoft (softwear - get it?).

Thanks

Harris

Sometimes I cook with wine, most times I have a glass of wine and sometimes..... ahhh.. I forget what I was talking about...

Pardon my (lack of) humor. My day job has corrupted my mind... We have all been there..

 

[Roger Garstang]

Some things I see as important enough to be built in libraries too that come with B4A. Like Encryption, Byte Conversion (Sort of goes with and needed by Encryption), and other much needed enhancements to controls and new dialogs. There could be an Option 3 of adding them to B4A and giving the devs a cut of sales too.

 

[LA3QMA]

libs

How to equaly reward regardles the complexity of a library i'm not sure of.

But if all or most of the libraries could be a part of the official release then we have soled the problem downloading libs and check that you have the latest version etc.

There should be a one click prosess to get all the libs updated.

 

[timwil]

Maybe I am missing it but - I think those that do the libraries do not do it for the money.

In some cases they do it because it is something that they needed for an application then decided to share it. I know when I was doing some research into Push-To-Talk and SIP I got some help here and shared what I came up with in the end

In other cases they do it because the thanks that they get by providing a useful library is sufficient for them - this can be fun too you know. I know (think?) AGraham has stated that he is retired and just did this to keep his mind active. And I believe he is the one that did the encryption libraries.

Finally I suspect that most of us would take some paid work but if it is something simple (from our perspective) we would rather just give the library away as the funds we would get from it just would not be worth it (to us)

Just my dos pesos

tim

 

[warwound]

I think there's a valid point to be made here, and that is that there seems to be a number of regular forum members that have no current employment.

Spending time developing a library and making it freely available is not a bad idea - it keeps the brain active as agraham has mentioned.

A developer with no current employment needs to be able to prove their worth to a potential new employer.

If you are an out of work developer and apply for work and can back up that application with proof that you are a keen and willing creator of free libraries and maybe even other free open source projects then you have nothing to lose.

That time spent developing free software could well influence your potential new employer and get you that job that otherwise you might not have got.

Martin.

 

[Erel]

There is no doubt that the community drives Basic4android forward. It would not have been possible to build Basic4android without the help of this great community.

The "job offers" forum can be used to offer payment for a specific task.

Libraries developers are free to choose whichever license they want for their creations (assuming that it is not based on creations of other members or official libraries).
This includes commercial licenses.

 

[thedesolatesoul]

However, many others, through the goodness of themselves, spend many hours furthering and developing /extending this product. This additional contribution, in the spirit of kindness and open source, leaves me feeling guilty - using what they created for nothing.

Myself in particular (and I see others), demand (humbly request) additional functionality. Others comply willingly thru some compulsion - feeling that the request is their duty, and produce our request - cause they can. They even create stuff nobody has asked for but others can use and profit from.

I may be going off-topic but I would like to commend Harris and his way of thinking and I wish everyone would think like him.
A lot of people have developed a sense of Entitlement for both Libraries and the B4A IDE, however all of these are provided with no promises.
Harris, I respect you for this. :sign0188: and it is probably users like you that give other developers the motivation to go on
Its the thought that counts.

 

[kickaha]

I think the best way to pay for help received on here is to stick around and help others, that way we all win.

 

[NeoTechni]

I wouldn't have the nerve to suggest paying people. The most I'd say is a discount on renewing the subscription. Not taking the shirt of Erel's back

 

[kanaida]

I think money is something best left to developers making their own apps, but knowledge shared is a great way to give back via libraries and helping other users. What I really actually enjoy about this current setup is:

a) It's basically the same model as open source, we build, share and all benefit.
b) we're growing the community for sure, and pretty good at getting answers as we go along.
c) for once it's a vb based language. Unfortunately people like languages that read like chaos because C was out first so usually we're not paid full attention to...

If this were to turn into a money type model it would sort of break that and put up limitations when you don't have much experience or budget to start with. It would be like paying people to write MSDN knowledgebase articles on microsoft's site...

 

[Cableguy]

I agree with the general idea, that the users who help others either witlh libs of just with ideas or solutions to a problem should be rewarded...
Other forums, like xda, have the "pay me a beer" implementation, wich alows anyone to pay whatever amount they see fit to the contributor, if he provides the link to do so...
This way, if a "contributor" does not require "beers", then he just does not post the link to his "bar"...

 

[NeoTechni]

I don't like the idea of getting paid for it.
It would raise the costs of development, and result in people getting less libraries
And I feel bad accepting money from people I know.

I would prefer library devs at most get a discount on their next subscription.

 

[Jost aus Soest]

the "pay me a beer" implementation

Bad idea!






I prefer wine!

 

[warwound]

I think that out of all these replies a donation based system is most acceptable.

Poor out of work B4A developers need not feel guilty that they cannot afford to donate, and developers with more funds could be as generous as they want.

I do freelance web development on a pay by donation basis and donations vary from small 'token' donations from clients with little spare cash to very generous donations from large corporations.

Much open source software relies on donations without stipulating a minimum donations amount - it encourages software users to thank the software developer without making it compulsory.

Martin.

 

[Erel]

I agree that the "buy me a beer" is a reasonable approach. I think that anyone who is interested should just add the link to his signature (it works with PayPal I believe).

 

[warwound]

I agree that the "buy me a beer" is a reasonable approach. I think that anyone who is interested should just add the link to his signature (it works with PayPal I believe).

Who's gonna be the first forum member to add a buy me a beer link then...

Some useful info can be found here.

Martin.

 

[Erel]

Be the first to add a link and I'll buy you a beer

 

[thedesolatesoul]

Erel, You dont need to buy us anything! Infact, we should be flooding you with beer since you help us a lot of projects that are not related to B4A support.

But I suggest, not to buy 'beer' specifically, or we may incapacitate the people who help us with neverending hangovers

...so far, two people in this thread willing to donate

and now we need Erel to write a tutorial for buying beer, warwound will write a lib for it, and then NJDude will come up with a sample, and then we will all be bathing in beer :icon_clap:
:sign0008:

 

[Cableguy]

Not that I am a major contributor in any way, but for the FUN f it, I'll be adding a "Buy me a PORTO shot" alongwith a nice picture of a well served Glass of wine.

The buy me a beer scheme has only advantages in my opinion..If a developer does not want to get payed for his work, just doesn't add the signature...
It's a donation system, so you/we can buy you just a pint, or a six-pack...it's up to the one who's buying the round!!!

 

[Cableguy]

Been trying to add my "Buy me a Porto" button, with no success...
Paypal's site generates an html dorm code, wich the signature code checker tells me its toooo long...

Adding this is not as simple as adding an image and a link... If anyone succeeds, please post the "how to"