Donating to GnuCash

[John Steele Scott]

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On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 15:53, Chris A. wrote:
> Would it be possible for a number of users to donate money towards new
> features? The GnuCash team could decide what features are most needed (both
> internal stuff and new user features), and we could either put bounties on
> the features, or pay for a developer to take a day off work and code for
> gnucash instead.

A good bounty system sounds like an excellent idea, although I have no idea 
how they work in practice. There are some features which I am sure many 
people would pay some small amount to have, although none of us would want to 
pay the large amount.

For instance, one feature I would be willing to put some cash towards is the 
ability to "bookmark" reports. I alone would only want to spend maybe $25-$50 
on this work, but if 10 or 20 other list users felt the same way, maybe we 
could make it happen faster than just waiting for someone to do it in their 
own time.

A couple of semi-random thoughts about this . . .

Although practically, the code is all that is important, I think most of us 
would prefer to have this work done by someone who is already a Gnucash 
developer, seeing as they would best know the code, but also as a kind of 
reward for work already done (although that is just a sentimental reason, not 
a business one). Also someone who has been in the Gnucash community for some 
time is more likely to be trustworthy, which is important for those of us who 
would be sending money overseas.

One thing I hate about most free software donation methods is that they use 
PayPal, and I have heard so many bad stories about them. I know that I can 
buy a US money order at Australia Post, but this kind of thing has large 
transaction costs, so an electronic alternative would be good. I have seen 
some developers use Amazon wishlists as a way for supporters to reward them, 
but "cash is king", as they say.

Another thing I would pay money for is some high quality documentation for 
report writing, similar to the "gentle introduction to Emacs Lisp" which I 
have mentioned once before on this list. That said, it would probably be 
cheaper just to pay someone to write custom reports for me (although I really 
would like to know how to do them myself).

I know at one stage there was a company called Gnumatic based around GnuCash, 
but I think that has disappeared, so maybe that shows the difficulty of 
getting financial support for consumer-targetted software.

Last thing, financial contributors would probably like to have their name up 
in lights (or at least in a subsection of the "About" box).

cheers,

John
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