[PD] no licensing, no money?

[gerard van dongen]

On Wed, 18 May 2005 15:09:55 +0200, Thoralf Schulze  
<thoralf_schulze at yahoo.de> wrote:

> hi everyone,
>
> it's good to see that this issue is being discussed
> here ...
>
>> what i don't like about the bounty system, is the
>> idea of "competition"
>> or "hunt" which is not really compatible with
>> "community" to my mind.
>

> I agree. Then again, the pd community (like any other
> open source community) is probably not as coherent as
> it seems to be at a first glance: there are the
> developers working on the software package and the
> users that use it for whatever their purposes are.
> There is a fundamental difference between developers
> and users:

<rant>
No there isn't, especially for something like pd which is a programming  
language as much as a program. There is a sliding scale between users and  
programmers.
this whole difference between devs and users is artificial and a product  
of the closed source software industry. </rant>

Not that everybody needs to code, but the idea that coding is a  
fundamentally different activity from using is wrong. Part of the magic  
computer mystique.



> From this point of
> view, bounties might be a good instrument to bring
> developers and users closer together - after all, the
> things that the average Joe User is missing in pd are
> not necessarily less important than the new and nifty
> things the average developer is implementing at the
> same time.

The problem is the price tag. How much does it cost to implement feature  
z, who determines who gets the job. Can I put up bounties for features and  
then code them myself if some institution gives money? Can I code features  
first but keep them to myself untill somebody coughs up some dough?

Bounties might work for something where there are only two or three  
developers and the program has a more strict licence than pd.

Use the money to pay some developers to come install and lecture on the  
stuff. Start a pd development group locally. Or commision somebody for a  
piece of music or an installation or a piece of software. Or get some  
funky hardware for the money. Sensors and stuff like that.

The pd community is too loose for something really official. And I  
personally like that.


another 2 c

Gerard