[LAU] A year of Linux Audio revisited - would like to know your oppinion

[Pieter Palmers]

Esben Stien wrote:
> Pieter Palmers <pieterp at joow.be> writes:
> 
>> pay the bills
> 
> I can't find any donation entry on your site, as so many project
> sites. I also haven't asked before, because I still don't own a 1394
> device.

You are correct, there is no donation button. The topic didn't rise yet.

As long as you don't accept donations, you have the freedom to always 
walk away. Which is of course part of the problem.

I know that I will still have some time to work on this for the next 
year. But after that it might be that my professional life interferes. 
So then I have two options: either cut down on the Linux Audio stuff, or 
cut on 'work'. And to be very honest, the way things are at the moment, 
I don't want to be depending on Linux Audio for my (and probably by 
then, my family's) living.

In summary, the option to have no obligations does have it's advantages. 
  But this is the exact reasoning that prevents Linux audio from getting 
anywhere. Mea culpa.

> 
> I now donate to fsf, ardour, crystalspace and wikimedia; ardour and
> gnu every month, even on a student "salary";). 
 >
> 
> It makes me feel good to support projects financially, but most
> projects don't put up a donation entry. It should be part of our
> culture to support free software projects.
> 
I completely agree.

Maybe we should consider some sort of 'no strings attached' donation 
agreement. Or maybe something like 'the software you get for free, but 
if you want support please donate'? This last one might be a good 
side-effect in our specific case: one of the biggest reasons why vendors 
hesitate to support us is that they fear that their customer support is 
going to have to deal with Linux users. Which they don't want since they 
don't have any experience. So 'outsourcing' the support might be an 
option. One way or another companies can't seem to grasp why people do 
these things for free.

Greets,

Pieter