| Subject | : | The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 15 Feb, 2007 on 22:17 |
| I hope everyone has had a chance to read the blog written by Adrian. Wow, he's paying the salary of a programmer mostly out of his own pocket which comes up to about 500 Euros a month! I think the only way to sustain this sort of development is to do what we did for the hardware for netlabs: set up a fund for donations from us for 6000 Euros for the development to continue for another year. cytan |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Ben Dragon |
| Date | : | 16 Feb, 2007 on 02:41 |
| Yes. That is a substantial amount of cash and the number floored me. My hat's off to Adrian. However, from more than one angle, I can see why he stopped ponying up the cash. While WV and UA has shown development over the last year, I can't say that those improvements have kept in sync with the money.Thanks, Adrian, for your significant and generous contribution. I sure hope that both pieces of software continue to be developed. A contributary fund would be nice, but who would do the development now? --- ![]() |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Sebadoh sys3175@optonline.net |
| Date | : | 16 Feb, 2007 on 06:23 |
| I really don't think the few minor improvements which have been made to warpvision and uniaud over the past year would justify 30 dollars nevermind 6000 euros.. and hell 20,000 you'd have to me smoking crack. This is just another disapointment in what has been a pretty bad year for news regarding OS/2. As I see it, this is pretty much what needs to happen: 1) The current uniaud code should probably be ditched (imho) Same with Warpvision. It is long known that warpvision is just bits and pieces of many other projects. How about opening it way up and trying to get the unix community cross compiling. Warpvision for Linux.. or whatever. The core system would benefit from it, and they could build a sdl build or something (for OS's which actually have good sdl.. ::cough:: not os/2). I mean.. none of this is anything original, but I think if we could pull it off then we would get enough behind the projects that they could actually move forward. I wouldn 't mind throwing 20 or 30 dollars every month or 2 their way if there was any progress to be made. I pretty much stopped contribuing to wo and warpvision when they basically broke both for my hardware. The newer warpvision builds while they had been baby stepping forward were taking leaps back at the same time (system hangs, lower quality video playback, inability to play videos the older version plays fine.. etc). I just tried out the latest KMP, and with a little improvement this could easily surpass warpvision, it is already playing video files which warpvision cannot.. though the newest build has a problem with some audio streams. It needs a PM interface, and overlay support but it has good quality video playback at 1:1 (better then warpvision) it's scaling it quite bad though.
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | BigWarpGuy |
| Date | : | 16 Feb, 2007 on 15:14 |
| http://blog.netlabs.org/ I did not mind paying for SDD from Scitech Soft. This was before it was part of eCS. I would not mind paying for UniAud or even WarpVision; if the price is within reason. KMP http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/mmedia/video/players/kmp-test.zip The link for KMP in the news did not work for me. I found the above links.
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Ben Dragon |
| Date | : | 16 Feb, 2007 on 16:36 |
| The big disappointment for me, has been the UniAud drivers. There doesn't seem to be any noticeable improvement over time, and bugs remain a-plenty. About the only thing that crashes my system out will be those drivers. I think it started off as a great concept, but has ceased to develop. Too bad there isn't an upcoming replacement or something to give their development a good shot in the arm. --- ![]() |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Blonde Guy |
| Date | : | 16 Feb, 2007 on 16:46 |
I'm grateful to Adrian for doing that. I'm grateful to Vlad for doing the work. But I'm also thinking that if I were to do the work, and I probably could, I'd want about 10x that. And, even with 10x, I still could not afford to buy health insurance. But that's a local US problem. Selling to end users doesn't work. SNAP sold for $39 or something, and the proceeds were able to cover the costs of selling SNAP, but not for developing or maintaining SNAP. They might as well have given it away. Paying Vlad was brilliant, but not maintainable. Someone could make a fund and promote it to pay Vlad some more, but that promotion is a full time job, too. What we need is a model to connect end users who want to pay 50 Euro with developers who want to do the work, but need to pay rent and eat food. The bounty system at OS/2 World is interesting, but won't work to support a developer, unless someone promotes it and raises the amount of the bounties by 10 to 100 times. My best idea is that a promoter at Netlabs could run a fund on a surplus basis. He'd raise money until he was ahead by 6 months to 1 year of salary, then offer contracts for programmers for specific projects. The fund would be run at a high level of transparency, to allow the community to see how their donations fund important new software. It would take about 400 donors of 50 Euro each to reach 20000 Euro. For 20000 Euro, I think we could get a new graphics driver, or support for booting on an Intel Mac. I love having all the source code at NetLabs in SubVersion. I'm now able to browse source code with SmartSVN way more easily that I could with the old NOSA client. It makes it much easier for a developer to look into some of these projects without committing too much time.
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Sebadoh sys3175@optonline.net |
| Date | : | 16 Feb, 2007 on 17:23 |
This is by no means a full time job for anyone. It is patching against another organizations code. He wasn't developing uniaud, he was attempting (and I say attempting because few except the actual innotek release actually work right) to make a build of alsa which would work in OS/2. The biggest mistake was trying to make all these "enhancements" the concentration should have been on getting a workable mmpm/dart driver. A direct api for the drivers shouldn't have even been a consideration until a good stable build enviroment had been achieved.
Selling to the end user is the market. You don't make software expecting to sell it to system integrators without a good word of mouth from end users. This is moot since warpvision and uniaud weren't being sold to end users. They were open source free software which end users sponsored. I believe there may have been alot more money in the sponsorship of the product had any improvements been seen during its developement. (actually most of the major improvements were made before sponsorship was even possible). I think snap could have been viable with end user sales, however they would have to charge for each time they upgraded. Honestly, if it was 39.99 to get in. and then 20 dollars for each update, I would have gladly bought every update. Or, pull something more out of microsoft's playbook and charge monthly (assuming you want continued support and updates).
This isn't meant to support a developer. This is assuming that someone is willing to work on the software and was going to do this (in their free time) anyway.. and it is basically a prize for accomplishing it. Think of it this way. I write a point of sale system for OS/2. Someone wants a new feature (this has happened) which is on my list of planned updates, and offers me x amount of money to prioritize on it. Now, I was going to do it anyway but now it is more likely to be an emphasis of my work. There is no way the OS/2 community can support full time developers. It couldn't do it 10 years ago and it sure as hell cannot do it today. We need to be more resourceful then that. Certain things it isn't important to re-invent the wheel. We need to find a project (like alsa) make a viable patch against it and let the alsa team do the majority of the work. Warpvision could become a patch against mplayer... I'm sure the mplayer team would even appreciate if the code was entered into the main source tree (they've been asking for that for some time). |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 16 Feb, 2007 on 21:36 |
| The other possibility is a subscription service like for the OpenOffice port. I think a streaming video player is important enough that I'm willing to subscribe to this. cytan |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Sebadoh sys3175@optonline.net |
| Date | : | 16 Feb, 2007 on 23:46 |
That would be the same thing as paying monthly =). I too would be willing to pay for it, however if I pay for it I expect it to work alot better then warpvision does. The free players with skyos already work better then warpvision. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | BigWarpGuy |
| Date | : | 17 Feb, 2007 on 00:18 |
Get enough 'subscribers' to make it worth it continuing?
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | ECSUser frank.alleyne@gmail.com |
| Date | : | 17 Feb, 2007 on 04:22 |
I too would support this model for funding development on Uniaud and WarpVision. As part of this kind of funding I would expect a well documented project structured to easily leverage code produced by Alsa & Mplayer as posted earlier . Meaningful feature releases and bug fixes would also be expected How do we get started ? |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 17 Feb, 2007 on 10:21 |
| If you want to contribute some ideas about how the development could be improved, please add them to the wiki pages below. We are not only interested in development related ideas, but also in ideas how this could be funded! What would users request in order do spend money on this, how could this be organized. Universal Audio WarpVision If you need an account in the wiki, let me know and I can create one. (supply your desired user name, if you don't want me to guess) Robert |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Sebadoh sys3175@optonline.net |
| Date | : | 17 Feb, 2007 on 19:36 |
| Not that my sentiments are generally appreciated but I think I will get onto the wiki. I personally don't ask for anything from uniaud except a stable functional sound driver. I have no cares for advanced api's or removal of mmpm dependencies. That simply isn't practical. Most OS/2 apps NEED mmpm if they have audio and trying to get every app out there rewritten to another standard is pointless. The main goal would be to support all the also supported soundchips and make them ALL work. Warpvision: It has been nearly four years we were told there would be dvd menu support. There needs to be a concentration on native codecs for the major video and audio formats. (these do not need to be mmos2 codecs, they could be in a warpvision format as long as it was documented so other apps could share the codecs). The streaming support needs to be greatly enhanced and some additional development on the mozilla/firefox plugin would be as well. I would pay 120 a year for either one if they could be made to work. 10 dollars per month per user, not baring outside contributions. If I saw radical improvments, I would be willing to sponsor additional units. I think the time for standing by and hoping that someone fills in the gaps are over, if we want to continue using OS/2, we have to offer something up for the developers. Again, going back to my original statement, I am not interested in PAYING a developer for fulltime development, but I wouldn't mind putting money into a system which rewards developers who in their spare time work to fix/fill in the holes in these systems.
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 17 Feb, 2007 on 20:42 |
| I generally agree with just about all of Sebadoh's analysis. I just have to emphasize that these events are a step in the right direction. As Blonde Guy pointed out, having the sources in Subversion is really nice. This is a time for UNIAUD's development to take a new direction, both in terms of its design and how the development is organized and funded. It seems Sebadoh has some constructive ideas for this, and I personally would encourage him to contribute to the wiki if possible. This newfound involvement of the larger community is a good thing for UNIAUD and OS/2. My only admonition is to try not to be so harsh when commenting on a developer's work that he has done. Paid or unpaid, developers put their heart into their work, and it is impossible for the end result to be without flaw, both in terms of error and elements of design, including scope and complexity. When the work is public, people can see all the defects, and publicly shoving the developer's nose in them is much more disheartening than you might imagine, and discourages developers as much, if not more than reducing funding. Good work has been done. More narrowly defined objectives will help it do better. Let us heartily thank Adrian and Vlad, and continue on with good cheer. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Sebadoh sys3175@optonline.net |
| Date | : | 18 Feb, 2007 on 05:23 |
Honestly, I don't wish to diminish Valst's work but it has been a long time and (apparently not an insignificant amount of money) and there has been little if any improvement. He has done some great things but it is obvious that no one person alone can work these projects, especially when it isn't their primary focus. I hope that he continues to work on it, and I hope that if this works out he manages to achieve some of the goals and collect money on his work.
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 20 Feb, 2007 on 17:52 |
| Let me propose the following as a possibility of funding the project: Collect up front $5000 to $6000 for $20 per subscription for 1 year. This means 200 to 300 people must subscribe to this project. Make 5 milestones. Subscribers vote as to whether the milestone has been reached and the programmer is paid $1000 per milestone. I really don't know whether this is actually workable, (because can we actually get 200 to 300 people interested in this?) but this is a start. Comments welcome! cytan |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | BigWarpGuy |
| Date | : | 20 Feb, 2007 on 19:38 |
| Sounds like a good plan. It would require getting the word out so they can participate. Perhaps a poll to measure how many would be interested? The subscription price seems reasonable.
--- BigWarpGuy - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OS/2-eCS.org Director of Communications - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - supporting the past OS/2 user and the future eCS user http://www.os2ecs.org |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 21 Feb, 2007 on 09:05 |
As a user, would you buy the subscription in the current situation? From a user standpoint, I would not, because I have no information about the projects! I would demand at least a list of goals and milestones before I purchase a subscription, what do you think? I would love to be proven wrong, but I don't think that people will throw money at a project without getting comprehensive information first.
As to the actual idea, I think we can get 200 to 300 people, if the conditions are right. If netlabs.org can show a list of well documented milestones, that are attractive for users and maybe even present a developer that would start to work on this right at the moment when the money is available.... Robert |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | ChineseGuy chenbiao@bridge2.cn |
| Date | : | 21 Feb, 2007 on 16:16 |
I totally agree with this idea, as long as netlabs.org can prepare this milestone document we can by the subscription. Chen. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 21 Feb, 2007 on 20:09 |
| Hi all, If Robert (WARP5) or Adrian Gerschwend can post their thoughts here about the proposal, the ball can definitely start rolling. cytan |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 21 Feb, 2007 on 20:56 |
| There is another dynamic to consider. As it stands at least a portion of the project is GPL, open source. What are people getting when they pay for a subscription? Access to pre-built, supported binaries? Access to the closed-source driver? Access to secret build instructions? Priority development for their hardware? Or just an understanding that they are sponsoring further development? What do non-paying users get? How will the existence of "subscriptions" impact the incentive to independently contribute code, and vice-versa? |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 21 Feb, 2007 on 22:41 |
| If I go with the OpenOffice model, I think sponsors should have (a) a sponsor id, password access to a support website with the developer hopefully trying to fix their problem. cytan
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 22 Feb, 2007 on 08:48 |
Don't expect Adrian to comment, as he will be leaving for an extra long vacation in march and is busy finishing the setup of the new server, and I am happy about that! Subversion access is a lot faster now and this is important for developers. Let me once again thank the community for donating enough money so that netlabs.org could purchase the server. I will post my thoughts as reply to the other posts. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 22 Feb, 2007 on 09:17 |
I would say there are lots of open question! That's why I created the wiki entry, because I cannot keep track of all of them in my head. (I already added to proposal with subscription to the wiki)
I don't want to get into the license discussion, that's why I will assume that all the code is GPL even if some modules are not, meaning that we have to publish the source. (we would not have to publish binaries, but if we do, we have to publish the source as well) As it stands, I would say people are getting development. They are getting a person that replies to bug reports and that produces binaries. They get a person that will listen to feature requests. I would say, they are paying for development. And btw, I am not sure a subscription model is the right one to use! I have my personal problems with subscriptions, some of them are related to how recent subscription in the OS/2 community (for example OpenOffice) have been handled. Time periods are usually unpredictable, as unforeseen problem arise. I think we should also look into a model where people pay for milestones separately. I know this involves more overhead in management but at least we should discuss this.
This raises the question, if pre-built drivers should only be available for subscription customers. I don't really think thats a good idea. But maybe we have to go that way. I think we can make a difference between a driver, and a supported driver, that is, we could technically "sell" the support and give away the driver.
I don't consider that an option. Netlabs.org is about open source projects.
I don't think that build instructions should be secret. For UniAudio and WarpVision, they kind of are, but that is only because we did a bad job in documenting that. If you ask me, every person should be able to build netlabs.org projects themselves.
That is an interesting point. I would say, people should be able to vote for their preferred milestone/ supported hardware with the money they spend.
In the ideal world, that would be enough, right?! People are happy to pay to have stuff developed. Not sure if that alone will do...
They get a driver, just like paying customer. I see your point here, the next question will be: Why should I pay if I get it for free? So we have to come up with some sort of advantage for people that pay. I would say, the ability to get support is one possibility. The next would be voting for supported hardware or features. Maybe we can add some more points.
Wow. I never thought of that. Let me get back to that later. ![]() Thanks for the very valid points, I will work them into the wiki, or you could do it... Robert |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 22 Feb, 2007 on 09:26 |
OK, so people that pay get support. I am fine with that, makes sense! Having a userID and password makes it complicated. This requires a person to actively maintain that. I don't think I have to stress the fact that netlabs.org does not have such a person. However, if this is absolutely required to make the subscription model work, then we have to do it.
Yea, or let me put it that way: Sponsors get access to beta and test versions, while non paying people get only access to the release versions. (of course, then we could simply delay the release versions and annoy people )
Does this imply that non sponsors get only the source code, no binary at all?
I agree. I still have not thought much about the impact for other developers.... |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 22 Feb, 2007 on 10:04 |
| I have drafted out one idea in the wiki, please scroll all the way to the bottom of the page: http://wiki.netlabs.org/index.php/UniAudio_Development |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 22 Feb, 2007 on 20:40 |
| I've read the wiki and agree with most of what you wrote. However, I don't see the point of paying $1 to vote for the milestones. Why? I also don't see how putting money into milestones help simplify management. I would suggest sponsors can suggest milestones but these potential milestones are consolidated and voted on by sponsors either once a year or half a year. After the votes, they become new milestones. I think this should keep milestones under control or else it will always be a moving target for the developer. Personally, I think there are enough bugs/improvements in Warpvision to keep a developer busy for 6 months! cytan
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 22 Feb, 2007 on 20:46 |
Yes, that's the privilege for putting money in |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 23 Feb, 2007 on 00:01 |
| So for access to the latest development sources (required to contribute code) one must buy a subscription which pays another developer for meeting a milestone made possible by the code contribution. If the primary developer will lose a milestone payment to someone else if he has not personally done the work, is he less likely to apply "outside" code contributions? Who would be the judge of whom is paid for which milestone? Just a couple questions that come to mind immediately. I could come up with more. While the strategy so far seems reasonable for collecting funds, it does not yet address the question of attracting "multiple eyes" to the project. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 23 Feb, 2007 on 04:01 |
| The subscription model really only works if there is *ONE* developer or *ONE* team hired to work on the code. There should be one guy who either works alone or leads a team of developers who will be paid per milestone. I don't think the sponsors can be the arbiter of whether the code is copied from outside contributions. The hired developer is responsible to work out the details if he wants to incorporate code from someone else. We really don't want to make things too complicated or else this will not work despite all our good intentions. cytan
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 23 Feb, 2007 on 10:04 |
No, that is not correct, and also not possible by the GPL I would say. The code will always be freely available in the SVN repository. Everybody can use it and fork it or branch off a different tree. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 23 Feb, 2007 on 16:23 |
| I understand that under GPL the code must be made available. However, correct me if I'm wrong, the source can be made available when it is done. It'll make zero sense if code under flux is always released. cytan
|
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | DavidG |
| Date | : | 23 Feb, 2007 on 18:22 |
| [quote]cytan (23 Feb, 2007 16:23): I understand that under GPL the code must be made available. However, correct me if I'm wrong, the source can be made available when it is done. It'll make zero sense if code under flux is always released. cytan
However, you would still need a developer to be resposible for the direction of the code. For instance, Steven Levine oversees the development of FM/2 which others contribute code to. Paul Ratcliffe oversees the development of XWP and its code updates. DavidG |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 23 Feb, 2007 on 18:34 |
Yes. But CVS and SNV has access control. Not everyone can just upload code into the tree.
cytan |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 24 Feb, 2007 on 02:43 |
| Anonymous read-only access to a Subversion repository is public access to source code that is in flux. If anyone is to do anything with the source, they have to have the very latest source, even up to the minute, or they can end up repeating work or risk doing something that breaks. That doesn't mean you want anonymous public write access to SVN, that would be bad. The GPL does not mean the latest development sources must be made available if there are no public builds, but it is best that they are. Talking about how paid, unpaid, official, and "single-patch" developers are to fit into the scenario might seem complicated, but it is at least as important as how users sponsor and influence development, which also can be perceived as complicated. Development, after all, must be done by developers. Funding is only for the purpose of furthering development, and not the end in itself. My concern is designing a payment/voting system too complicated and rigid to promote and invite open development. This project is sufficiently different from OO.org that a copy of its model isn't necessarily a good fit. Remember that the solution isn't just to substitute for Adrian's money but to also free it from the constraints of the single-paid-developer-only model. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 24 Feb, 2007 on 03:04 |
| I agree that making things too complicated will not get us what we ultimately want: a usable UNIAUD and Warpvision. We cannot be the first group of people who want to sponsor the development of programmes in a controlled fashion. Anyone out there who knows of a model that is workable? cytan
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Sebadoh sys3175@optonline.net |
| Date | : | 24 Feb, 2007 on 18:18 |
I agree, my original statement of a subscription was more of a joke then anything else, I originally said I would be willing to get in at a decent cost of entry (say 30-40 dollars) and then pay another 20-30 for each milestone. I mean, the costs would have to be worked out and I am just working off the top of my head but however I would be willing to offer more for warpvision then for uniaud, as much as we need Uniaud, currently I have working sound and a half working video player (grin). I think the milestone method would also encourage individual developers to contribute instead of hurt it. Since there is something to be gained from their efforts even if they are not the lead programmer. Pay them for features instead of time. This also makes people not take on more then they can chew because going down a long unproductive road wouldn't make them any money.
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Kim |
| Date | : | 25 Feb, 2007 on 11:17 |
| Question here, but do you really think that people are willing to be part of yet another subscriptions program? Just look at the subscription program for eCS I don't think that has been a success (and please someone correct me and show some digits here on how many that subscribes to eCS upgrades). As well, the old IBM subscription program wasn't a hit either among private users. If a new subscription program should be set up I would suggest that there should be defined a minimum amount of users and if this can't be fulfilled; Plan B should be used instead. Also, look at existing subscriptions plans and donation programs such as: - eCS upgrade subscriptions How much funds has been collected and how many people are subscribers already? How big is the markedplace? If people don't even care to cast their vote on a poll asking for future development and the same poll gets around 300-400 votes. Also, what do you get for money, early betas and source code. I think that most users couldn't care less. Finally I'm totally positive to the suggestion, just that I know from other community efforts it's hard to get people to cash up the money for something they think should be free and cost nothing. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | zman zirkle@wizard.net |
| Date | : | 25 Feb, 2007 on 12:43 |
| .... not to mention people who have paid only to see good efforts stop at a 2.0 version; just short of the polish of a 3.0 product. i paid for warp vision then it became free. i paid $1,000.0 for voice type dictation in 1994 then it became free in 1996 and was then dropped. i paid for scitech. i even have a copy of system object model v3.0 beta. the list goes on and on. i had the presence of mind, when users said oh it costs too much, to BUY vpc knowing that os/2 would eventually become less and less practical. i also bought good hardware in duplicate so that i'd have parts to support this aging platform. i PAID for emperoartv and don't regret it since it plays dvds wonderfully. also records well!!! an editor is what is missing. so, i'm set i have what i need and if nothing ever is released again what does it matter? i've paid os2world, netlabs, even my russian heros. i've paid my dues. i'm glad i did; but, i can't continue. BTW ms has just released vpc v7 with sound support for no cost. this eliminates any market for ssi to sell vm tech in a migration package for os/2 users. vpc7 doesn't need any version later than cp2 or ecs 1.2. i have it. works well. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 25 Feb, 2007 on 18:39 |
| I think it's time for another poll! Will I pay $20 for a subscription for WarpVision development if there are clearly defined milestones? And another one for UNIAUD. If the number is less than 100, I think we can forget about it. cytan
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| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 26 Feb, 2007 on 00:25 |
| I am persuaded by Kim. Money from users is increasingly scarce, and isn't sufficient to effect the desired goals here. Where it can be had, hardware and bandwidth for such sites as os2world, netlabs, and the other gems would seem to be the most efficient use of it. It seems to me the best thing is to facilitate source access and the ability to build these packages, along with online content such as support forums and bugtracking. If we can build and patch it, and document and discuss it, development will continue. As Sebadoh suggested, if the core of UNIAUD were more compatible with ALSA, development would mostly be a matter of maintaining that compatibility, much less work than the project currently has entailed. If there is a problem with a specific card, and enough people want it, a bounty would seem a decent incentive. If there were other goals of UNIAUD than compatibility with ALSA, they should probably be split into a separate project, so users and developers interested in those features can pursue each for its own sake. Someone must be responsible for maintaining the code, but he doesn't have to be paid. If benevolent enough, he might even handle voluntary donations in a constructive way. Someone probably already is. Still, chartering some sort of plan is needed, and I haven't really done that here. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | ECSUser frank.alleyne@gmail.com |
| Date | : | 26 Feb, 2007 on 05:39 |
I would pay $20 or $25 for a Warpvision subscription as well as a Uniaud subscription . I think we can use this model in the short term to fully document these projects, setup robust build environments where necessary, streamline the process of importing code used or borrowed from other projects and fix some bugs. UniAud in particular is an important piece of eCS and I think here more so than WarpVision (Which seems to be picking up some competitors ), A subscription from users AND from the businesses who currently have an interest in eCS would only help eCS to progress to version v2.0 and v3.0. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Stuart srtgray@clara.net |
| Date | : | 26 Feb, 2007 on 11:01 |
| Well, I don't know if I have any solutions here, but I'm certainly feeling depressed about it all. I think that development on Uniaud/ALSA will gain most ground if they are tightly focussed on a small set of hardware, e.g. Soundblaster cards and the sound chips in Thinkpad T* laptops. I would certainly pay up to $200 for a working DVD player that uses the menus and plays all my DVDs. I have to keep a windows partition for that, and it rankles. I just wish I could get my head around programming! Stuart |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | cytan |
| Date | : | 26 Feb, 2007 on 17:11 |
| What I fear is that we don't settle on a funding model, these two projects will just die, like ODIN. Unlike LINUX, programmer altruism is not realistic for us because our developer base is so small. There are many of us (myself included) who are just not into programming and just want to use the OS. The only way to get programmes that we want is to pay for them and if the community does not want to pony up $$$$ to continue development, OS/2 or ECS will die a natural death from sheer apathy. cytan |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 27 Feb, 2007 on 08:24 |
I took the weekend off and now I am back and I am confronted with lots of posts, great! (I find it really hard to follow this thread here, I wish there was a way to make this display in a threaded view, otherwise I would really prefer to move this over to the netlabs.org community mailing list that I can view threaded via the newsgroup interface)Obiwan, I copied your two very valid points to the wiki, to keep them in mind. Robert |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 27 Feb, 2007 on 08:38 |
I totally agree with your points and also the thoughts of the other people in this thread are appreciated! I guess we would have to come up with at least 2 funding ideas and then have people vote on them. I could even live with saying that if not at least 500 people vote, then the project makes no sense as not enough people are interested, but I guess the final number would have to be discussed. ![]() Robert |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 28 Feb, 2007 on 02:11 |
| Thanks Warp5. From what I understand Odin is a good example of a project that was so unfortunately difficult to build that it discouraged open development and contribution. I can't prove it but I would suspect that was a bigger factor than money in its decline. Market research such as the poll discussed would be a good thing to help flesh this out. Just thinking in general economic terms, if people are willing to pay for a sound driver subscription, that would indicate to me that the cost of an eComStation license is too low. There is the conventional expectation that the cost of an OS includes the cost of driver development. It would seem fair to me that if anyone should profit by OS/2 driver development it should be SSI, as the eComStation product is tied directly to it. In fact, the sales of eComStation should be expected to be directly impacted by the reliability of UNIAUD. This also means that the party with the most interest in developing UNIAUD as a marketable product is SSI. Conversely, if UNIAUD itself demands a paid subscription, that will depress the viable sale price of eComStation, because it is an added cost to the consumer. It could even kill sales of eComStation, because the very fact that sound drivers are sold separately (even referred to a third party for support?) makes an OS less attractive for sale. Therefore, IMHO, the ordinary paid developer of UNIAUD should be SSI, and how much of their resources go into its development is best decided by SSI, in the context of developing eComStation for market. If the reality is that SSI cannot afford the resources to develop UNIAUD sufficiently and also profitably, then UNIAUD can't be sustained on its own either, as a purely marketed and sold product. So paying for our software, on this scale, does not guarantee its survival. On the other hand, that does not mean UNIAUD can't be sustained with SSI's limited resources. Its being GPL means if someone has the need and ability, he can fix a problem with it. The only "altruism" needed in this scenario is that people submit their fixes for inclusion. If I can't fix it, I can ask questions and someone might be able to help. If I don't have time, I could pay someone to fix it - anyone, or one of the "official" (but perhaps ordinarily unpaid). If I can't afford it, I could find others who also want the problem fixed and we can pool our funds in a bounty. That is why I believe the online communication tools are so key. SSI as the vendor of eComStation has a central role, and the community has a complementary one. We form a symbiont circle. What happens to one will affect the other. You must understand this. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Warp5 |
| Date | : | 28 Feb, 2007 on 10:28 |
I agree to some extend. Even though I think ODIN is a bad example as that is a rather complex project. The number of the developers that would really understand the code and not just "patch stuff" is rather small. But I fully agree that build instructions and tools have to be readily available!
Yes, my current idea is to draft out two funding proposals and then do a poll about which one to use. However, I expect a high rate of people that will participate in the poll and then later will not contribute, but that's life.
I talked with a developer yesterday, and he stressed the point that it is important to get feedback and only develop (and support) stuff that people really need. So he was in favor of simply documenting the current environment and then release a test version against which bugs could be verified and new chipsets or new features could be requested. So maybe we should move away from the subscription idea a bit, at least for UniAudio...
I will try to contact SSI and see if I can get some input on the whole thing. Robert |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 01 Mar, 2007 on 02:04 |
I'll concede that point. You would know better, and that makes sense to me. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned there as well. |
| Subject | : | Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
| Author | : | Kim |
| Date | : | 02 Mar, 2007 on 14:50 |
| A little followup regarding the raise of funds; might be that quite a few have issues to pay 20-50 USD in one single payment. So suggestion that I could set up within the OS2 World bounty system together with Björn Söderström (he is the one who's in charge of the Bounty System) would be to set up a subscription to support generic OS2 development where people can sign up and by that we can have paypal to withdraw sums from 1-5 dollars per month. As earlier OS2 User Group Sweden will take care of all the fees involved so 100% sponsored funds goes to development. If this is a supported idea by you guys here, I'm more than open to set this up and as well a input of how the subscription information should look like would be welcome. Within this thread there has also been talk about setting up polls; make suggestion by using following url: http://scripts.os2world.com/stuffed/index.cgi?pkg=poll&action=suggest_poll
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