[Typo3-dev] The donation issue - please join this debate!

[Robert Lemke]

Hi folks,

Stig Nørgaard Færch wrote:

> So shouldn't something be comunicated out?
> I don't think that fundable.org is very known.
> It should almost be frontpage news ;-)

After thinking about it for a few days, I came to the conclusion that
_something like_ fundable.org is a great thing, but still I don't like the
fact that you need Paypal for it. It doesn't mean that nobody should use
fundable.org, but I imagine that in my case it's even easier to handle: 

Let's take TemplaVoila as an example. I have to deliver version 1.0 in
December, no matter what. I need 100 marbles for the 8 weeks of work so I
put a donat-o-meter on some page which has a zero-line of 100 marbles (or
Euro) and shows the current amount of donations. People can then transfer
money directly to me (or use Paypal if it's not possible by other means)
and I will publish a list of donators and keep the donat-o-meter updated.

I think it will work in this case because there is no question if the
project should start or not. So what if that is not so clear and we have to
wait until enough people have shown their will to sponsor?

Again, for me the easiest solution (without giving some company 4%) is this:
I write on some page how much money is neccessary to realize a certain
project. People who would like to sponsor amount x, should write me an
email until a certain date and give their word that they really will
sponsor x euro at date y. They are listed on some public page. If there are
enough people I'll email all of them and ask them to transfer the money.

In that case I would take the risk that all money comes together, but those
who don't pay although promised, take the risk to be flamed ...

In total I agree with all of you that we need some procedure and tools to
make donations easier, the donat-o-meter extension could be one of them (I
already talked with René about it). On the other hand I would like to avoid
paying even more money to a company like Paypal (= Ebay) which forces
people to spend days reading their user agreements [1].

Anyway, technically Paypal is a cool solution ...

Cheers,
robert

[1] http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/ua-outside

-- 
Robert Lemke
TYPO3 Association - Research & Development
Member of the board
http://association.typo3.org