Hi all
Often I start to code something and I bump into some uglyness (file systems) or some parts that are not finished (Projects) and I got slow down. Saying that part of X or Z is bad does not help, because you have the "participate" or do it yourself syndrome that I understand perfectly.
Now I would be ready to ***PAY*** to have some better packages. I think that we should invent a market for better Squeak components. Even if the components get released in the image.
For now we cannot pay even if we would like. So does anybody an idea how to proceed? For example, if one of you can evaluate the amount of effort to fix some broken/strange part and start with a price and participation people could then allocate money so that this part gets improved.
For example: - we say the file system improvement should cost 500 $ - and that the parts are 25$ -> we need to find 20 people/companies/organization to pay or less. - once the people committed to pay then the provider do it.
I would really like that we give a try because I'm ready to pay to get better software in Squeak. But right now we cannot even pay!!!
Stef
"Stéphane" == stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch writes:
Stéphane> I would really like that we give a try because I'm ready to Stéphane> pay to get better software in Squeak. But right now we Stéphane> cannot even pay!!!
Why don't you hire a consultant to get the work done under a free software license?
Sam
This is another possibility but we cannot have the same critical mass because I may be able to spend 100 $ but not 1000$ and several people may be in the same case.
Stef
On 28 mars 04, at 16:56, Samuel Tardieu wrote:
"Stéphane" == stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch writes:
Stéphane> I would really like that we give a try because I'm ready to Stéphane> pay to get better software in Squeak. But right now we Stéphane> cannot even pay!!!
Why don't you hire a consultant to get the work done under a free software license?
Sam
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@rfc1149.net -- http://www.rfc1149.net/sam
Samuel Tardieu sam@rfc1149.net wrote:
"Stéphane" == stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch writes:
Stéphane> I would really like that we give a try because I'm ready to Stéphane> pay to get better software in Squeak. But right now we Stéphane> cannot even pay!!!
Why don't you hire a consultant to get the work done under a free software license?
Believe me, I'm available for very reasonable rates. As are several other people, some of who might even be nearly as competent as myself :-)
This is essentially a variant of the idea we hoped to establish with a properly legal Squeak Foundation; provide a legal body that could accept money and pay it out to support people working on significant projects. Right now I can afford to work on stuff very cheaply (if it's work I find interesting anyway) because I have no mortgage to worry about and our other expenses are startlingly small. In fact the total expenses look likely to be less than just our mortage we were paying in silly con valley. And waaay less than the taxes I used to pay.
tim -- Tim Rowledge, tim@sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim Useful Latin Phrases:- Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo = Don't call me, I'll call you.
Hi Tim
Why don't you try to propose some topics you would like to work on and build a kind of small business model. For my side I would pay for:
- a better UI framework - a better file system - a better compiler framework - a better VM
I suggest you to have a pay pal for VMMaker for example. Do you know if paypal send bills to the payer?
Right now there is no legal structure to collect funds, so people/organization cannot give money. I would like to buy Squeak3.7. I think that there is a difference between open-source and paying to get a good distribution. We should invent our own market.
For example in the schools people have budget to buy software or cd such as the Squeak CD. I think that selling the CD 25$ is not a problem at all. Marcus do you know if we get a bill when we order the SqueakCD (Markus did you bought it for the group?).
Stef
On 28 mars 04, at 20:43, Tim Rowledge wrote:
Samuel Tardieu sam@rfc1149.net wrote:
> "Stéphane" == stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch writes:
Stéphane> I would really like that we give a try because I'm ready to Stéphane> pay to get better software in Squeak. But right now we Stéphane> cannot even pay!!!
Why don't you hire a consultant to get the work done under a free software license?
Believe me, I'm available for very reasonable rates. As are several other people, some of who might even be nearly as competent as myself :-)
This is essentially a variant of the idea we hoped to establish with a properly legal Squeak Foundation; provide a legal body that could accept money and pay it out to support people working on significant projects. Right now I can afford to work on stuff very cheaply (if it's work I find interesting anyway) because I have no mortgage to worry about and our other expenses are startlingly small. In fact the total expenses look likely to be less than just our mortage we were paying in silly con valley. And waaay less than the taxes I used to pay.
On Mar 28, 2004, at 11:21 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
Hi Tim
Why don't you try to propose some topics you would like to work on and build a kind of small business model. For my side I would pay for:
- a better UI framework
- a better file system
- a better compiler framework
- a better VM
Someone started a page on the wiki for this - see http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2653 . I don't think anything ever came of it (that is, I've never heard of money actually changing hands because of it).
What you're suggesting is certainly an interesting experiment. It could go the other way too: people could post detailed lists of things that they would be willing and qualified to work on, but don't have time to do immediately; others could send them money to move some of those items to the top of the priority list. Certainly with packages like Monticello I feel that I could be occupied full time improving it if there were enough interest and funding, but so far I have no way of knowing what the interest level is for what, and no real mechanism to get funding for any of it directly.
I don't get the impression that there's a whole lot of money floating about in the community for that kind of thing, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
Avi
Avi Bryant avi@beta4.com wrote:
Someone started a page on the wiki for this - see http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2653 . I don't think anything ever came of it (that is, I've never heard of money actually changing hands because of it).
Hmm, well it looks like Craig might be on track for the 'small image that loads classes on demand' payment. I think a few more people ought to sign up to make that worthy of the effort it has taken.
Now as for the 6 times faster than 3.2 VM - measured how? On what machine(s)? Empty wallets want to know...
tim -- Tim Rowledge, tim@sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim Borrow money from pessimists--they don't expect it back.
Tim Rowledge wrote:
Avi Bryant avi@beta4.com wrote:
Someone started a page on the wiki for this - see http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2653 . I don't think anything ever came of it (that is, I've never heard of money actually changing hands because of it).
Hmm, well it looks like Craig might be on track for the 'small image that loads classes on demand' payment. I think a few more people ought to sign up to make that worthy of the effort it has taken.
Now as for the 6 times faster than 3.2 VM - measured how? On what machine(s)? Empty wallets want to know...
I'd consider any reasonable measure of performance that doesn't reduce to hocus pocus. My current servers are Intel Pentium III processors running Linux (Fedora Core 1).
-Mark Schwenk WellThot Inc.
"Mark A. Schwenk" mas@wellthot.com wrote:
Now as for the 6 times faster than 3.2 VM - measured how? On what machine(s)? Empty wallets want to know...
I'd consider any reasonable measure of performance that doesn't reduce to hocus pocus. My current servers are Intel Pentium III processors running Linux (Fedora Core 1).
I wonder how far we are? I wouldn't be surprised if we're better than 2x anyway simply from general improvements in the code. Wish my recent prim/timer changes had done as much good for x86 as they did for RISC OS!
I'd suggest doing benchmarking using the benchmark package on SM; it includes the old GreenBook benchmarks, slopstones and smopstone and ought to give a good spread of data. If someone actually has a 3.2vm that can run an image that can load the benchmark code we could find out the answer. I'd be interested, quite aside from money.
tim -- Tim Rowledge, tim@sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim Strange OpCodes: BBL: Branch on Burned out Light
On Sunday 28 March 2004 8:16 pm, Tim Rowledge wrote:
I wonder how far we are? I wouldn't be surprised if we're better than 2x anyway simply from general improvements in the code.
As you may recall from your visit to my house, I've seen a 2:1 spread over various *3.6* VMs on my system, depending on optimization flags and GCC versions.
Wish my recent prim/timer changes had done as much good for x86 as they did for RISC OS!
I'd suggest doing benchmarking using the benchmark package on SM; it includes the old GreenBook benchmarks, slopstones and smopstone and ought to give a good spread of data. If someone actually has a 3.2vm that can run an image that can load the benchmark code we could find out the answer. I'd be interested, quite aside from money.
On a Pentium Pro system running Linux (2.4GHz, 800MHz memory bus), and on a 3.2-4 image, I get:
3.2-4 VM, Linux 0 tinyBenchmarks '126357354 bytecodes/sec; 3343528 sends/sec' Performance Rating 5141.30810938756
3.6g-3 VM, Linux 0 tinyBenchmarks '207792207 bytecodes/sec; 6490934 sends/sec' Performance Rating 12107.95708688026
Details are attached.
Ned Konz ned@bike-nomad.com wrote:
On Sunday 28 March 2004 8:16 pm, Tim Rowledge wrote:
I wonder how far we are? I wouldn't be surprised if we're better than 2x anyway simply from general improvements in the code.
As you may recall from your visit to my house, I've seen a 2:1 spread over various *3.6* VMs on my system, depending on optimization flags and GCC versions.
Hmm, forgot about that detail. It's certainly true that the newer CC on RISC OS added a good 10%. Just adds more confusion to the issue.
Wish my recent prim/timer changes had done as much good for x86 as they did for RISC OS!
I'd suggest doing benchmarking using the benchmark package on SM; it includes the old GreenBook benchmarks, slopstones and smopstone and ought to give a good spread of data. If someone actually has a 3.2vm that can run an image that can load the benchmark code we could find out the answer. I'd be interested, quite aside from money.
On a Pentium Pro system running Linux (2.4GHz, 800MHz memory bus), and on a 3.2-4 image, I get:
3.2-4 VM, Linux 0 tinyBenchmarks '126357354 bytecodes/sec; 3343528 sends/sec' Performance Rating 5141.30810938756
3.6g-3 VM, Linux 0 tinyBenchmarks '207792207 bytecodes/sec; 6490934 sends/sec' Performance Rating 12107.95708688026
Details are attached.
Interesting; that's certainly >2x over all I'd say. I'm quite surprised the micro-BMs vary so much as well as the macro. Perhaps the global-struct change helpd there.
Guess it's time we had some real profiling of VM activity to ponder.
tim -- Tim Rowledge, tim@sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim An algorithm must be seen to be believed. - D. E. Knuth
Package support is also in my list. ;)
At that time we bought Envy so I would like to be able to buy a full monticello package. Here everybody is using that now. Envy was worth the money. we also bought VW when it was not free.
Now we could also imagine that other companies (even small) can pay for better development tool. I think that before we try it we cannot know the answer and only relying on the time and energy of people is good but limited.
Stef
On 29 mars 04, at 01:17, Avi Bryant wrote:
On Mar 28, 2004, at 11:21 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
Hi Tim
Why don't you try to propose some topics you would like to work on and build a kind of small business model. For my side I would pay for:
- a better UI framework
- a better file system
- a better compiler framework
- a better VM
Someone started a page on the wiki for this - see http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2653 . I don't think anything ever came of it (that is, I've never heard of money actually changing hands because of it).
What you're suggesting is certainly an interesting experiment. It could go the other way too: people could post detailed lists of things that they would be willing and qualified to work on, but don't have time to do immediately; others could send them money to move some of those items to the top of the priority list. Certainly with packages like Monticello I feel that I could be occupied full time improving it if there were enough interest and funding, but so far I have no way of knowing what the interest level is for what, and no real mechanism to get funding for any of it directly.
I don't get the impression that there's a whole lot of money floating about in the community for that kind of thing, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
Avi
"stéphane ducasse" ducasse@iam.unibe.ch escribió en el mensaje news:4EF8105E-814C-11D8-A4C6-000A9573EAE2@iam.unibe.ch...
Now we could also imagine that other companies (even small) can pay for better development tool.
Agree. I prefer invest my modest argentinian pesos in Squeak instead closed commercial tools (now all with subscription policies).
- a better UI framework
It's in my list also, a GUI designer on top of Morphic, some additional widgets (all Morphic and all "inside the image") and some mechanism to wire model with GUI designed.
About some formal organization to collect, by example, donations, take in account that the dollar (or Euro) value is high to people living (as me) in the 3th. world.
Regards.
gsa.
I could commit to small amounts of money. I could commit to larger amounts of "computer related stuff" i.e. a $100 book from Amazon. That way I can claim it as a business expense easily and therefore can spend more.
I don't know how to manage the distribution so that people don't get their noses out of joint.
Off the top of my head...how about a monthly prize pool voted on using SqueakPeople? People donate money, books, etc and each month (or week, etc), everybody votes on the enhancements that have been implemented. The best bug fixer get a prize, the best VM mod (Tim and Andreas get all of those :), the best new plugin, etc. It gives people some encouragement, especially newbies. Maybe only maintainers get to vote which would encourage people to become maintainers.
I can see some problems with this distribution method, but maybe they can be worked out.
Russell
Since you spolke about prizes and voting, I would like to remind you that ESUG is organizing this year its first Technology Innovation Awards. There are 3 prizes ranging from 500 Euros to 200 Euros. Prizes are distributed based on votes of conference attendees (see below the announce)
Noury ------------------------------------
ESUG Innovation Technology Awards
The European Smalltalk Users Group (ESUG) is proud to announce its first Innovation Technology Awards. The top 3 teams with the most innovative software will receive, respectively, 500 Euros, 300 Euros and 200 Euros during an awards ceremony at the next ESUG conference (6-10 september 2004, Köthen, Germany). Developpers of any Smalltalk-based software are welcome to compete.
Eligibility
* Any Smalltalker can apply (students, companies, ...) * The presented piece of code/software should be written in Smalltalk or directly support Smalltalk (e.g. Smalltalk VM) * All Smalltalk dialects are accepted * The applicant should own the copyright/copyleft of presented code or at least be the official representative of the copyright/copyleft owner * The presented software should be recent. It should have been finished after the 1st january 2002. * The software should be free for non commercial use.
How to apply?
Applicants should provide :
1. a short paper (in PDF format) up to 3 A4 pages in 12pt font with : * keywords for the entry, and * Smalltalk platforms it runs on, and * whether it is a free- or shareware, or a professional piece of software, * names and affiliation of developpers, and * description of their software, and * one or more screenshots of their software, if possible, and 2. a runnable demo (available for download or on a CD).
Descriptions and demo location should be sent to bouraqadi@ensm-douai.fr mailto:bouraqadi@ensm-douai.fr
Evaluation
Winners will be selected by votes of the conference attendees. Pieces of software will be downloadable from the ESUG website 2 weeks before the conference to give people the chance to evaluate it. Every applicant can give a 10min talk/demo during the conference. Then, conference attendees do vote.
A vote consists in providing a sorted list of 3 prefered pieces of software. Voters should provide such a list based on their preception of software's:
* Innovation and Creativity * Stability and Performance * Successfull use
Winners are softwares which ranks top the most often.
Dates
* Applications (see requirements) should be sent by july 1st * Notification of eligibility will be sent by july 31st * Demos, votes and the Awards Ceremony will take place during the ESUG Conference, 6-10 september 2004, Köthen, Germany.
Russell Penney wrote:
I could commit to small amounts of money. I could commit to larger amounts of "computer related stuff" i.e. a $100 book from Amazon. That way I can claim it as a business expense easily and therefore can spend more.
I don't know how to manage the distribution so that people don't get their noses out of joint.
Off the top of my head...how about a monthly prize pool voted on using SqueakPeople? People donate money, books, etc and each month (or week, etc), everybody votes on the enhancements that have been implemented. The best bug fixer get a prize, the best VM mod (Tim and Andreas get all of those :), the best new plugin, etc. It gives people some encouragement, especially newbies. Maybe only maintainers get to vote which would encourage people to become maintainers.
I can see some problems with this distribution method, but maybe they can be worked out.
Russell
On Mar 28, 2004, at 11:21 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
Right now there is no legal structure to collect funds, so people/organization cannot give money. I would like to buy Squeak3.7. I think that there is a difference between open-source and paying to get a good distribution. We should invent our own market.
This is extremely vague and probably silly, but would it be at all useful to start a sort of "squeak of the month club"? Anyone who wanted to join would pledge, say, $10 or $20 a month to go towards squeak-related development, and we would have some kind of voting mechanism to allocate the funds to specific projects each month. Rationally I realize this isn't much different from a bunch of individual $20 donations, but somehow I think people would be more likely to participate in something organized than just choose out of the blue to send someone a cheque. And it might motivate us to get a structure in place that would allow us to accept larger-scale contributions later on...
Do any other open source projects do something similar?
Avi
Well there is the Smalltalk Industry Council (STIC) which quite a few people have membership ($) in. This does help fund things like Smalltalk Solutions 2004. However I don't think they provide any Smalltalk/Squeak jobs directly, indirectly perhaps.
Perhaps one should send their $50? to STIC and then $20 to the squeak foundation?
On Mar 28, 2004, at 7:36 PM, Avi Bryant wrote:
This is extremely vague and probably silly, but would it be at all useful to start a sort of "squeak of the month club"? Anyone who wanted to join would pledge, say, $10 or $20 a month to go towards squeak-related development, and we would have some kind of voting mechanism to allocate the funds to specific projects each month. Rationally I realize this isn't much different from a bunch of individual $20 donations, but somehow I think people would be more likely to participate in something organized than just choose out of the blue to send someone a cheque. And it might motivate us to get a structure in place that would allow us to accept larger-scale contributions later on...
Do any other open source projects do something similar?
Avi
-- ======================================================================== === John M. McIntosh johnmci@smalltalkconsulting.com 1-800-477-2659 Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com ======================================================================== ===
On Mar 28, 2004, at 7:44 PM, John M McIntosh wrote:
Well there is the Smalltalk Industry Council (STIC) which quite a few people have membership ($) in. This does help fund things like Smalltalk Solutions 2004. However I don't think they provide any Smalltalk/Squeak jobs directly, indirectly perhaps.
Perhaps one should send their $50? to STIC and then $20 to the squeak foundation?
Well, or since the Squeak Foundation doesn't legally exist yet, perhaps we can convince the STIC to act as the recipient/distributor of such donations. Basically there would be a "Squeak subscription membership" that was separate from the regular STIC membership... ? That may be outside of their mandate, though.
John M McIntosh wrote:
Well there is the Smalltalk Industry Council (STIC) which quite a few people have membership ($) in. This does help fund things like Smalltalk Solutions 2004. However I don't think they provide any Smalltalk/Squeak jobs directly, indirectly perhaps.
Perhaps one should send their $50? to STIC and then $20 to the squeak foundation?
You can also send some money to ESUG and/or attend to the conference
Noury
On Mar 28, 2004, at 7:36 PM, Avi Bryant wrote:
This is extremely vague and probably silly, but would it be at all useful to start a sort of "squeak of the month club"? Anyone who wanted to join would pledge, say, $10 or $20 a month to go towards squeak-related development, and we would have some kind of voting mechanism to allocate the funds to specific projects each month. Rationally I realize this isn't much different from a bunch of individual $20 donations, but somehow I think people would be more likely to participate in something organized than just choose out of the blue to send someone a cheque. And it might motivate us to get a structure in place that would allow us to accept larger-scale contributions later on...
Do any other open source projects do something similar?
Avi
--
=== John M. McIntosh johnmci@smalltalkconsulting.com 1-800-477-2659 Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com ======================================================================== ===
Hi avi
this is a good idea. For me the main point is as soon as we get some bills with a reasonable title and item we can spend some money. I would go for a 6 months term. 120 $ basis
stef
On 29 mars 04, at 05:36, Avi Bryant wrote:
On Mar 28, 2004, at 11:21 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
Right now there is no legal structure to collect funds, so people/organization cannot give money. I would like to buy Squeak3.7. I think that there is a difference between open-source and paying to get a good distribution. We should invent our own market.
This is extremely vague and probably silly, but would it be at all useful to start a sort of "squeak of the month club"? Anyone who wanted to join would pledge, say, $10 or $20 a month to go towards squeak-related development, and we would have some kind of voting mechanism to allocate the funds to specific projects each month. Rationally I realize this isn't much different from a bunch of individual $20 donations, but somehow I think people would be more likely to participate in something organized than just choose out of the blue to send someone a cheque. And it might motivate us to get a structure in place that would allow us to accept larger-scale contributions later on...
Do any other open source projects do something similar?
Avi
Something like www.experts-exchange can be used as a model.
Every individual can deposit money for to the system and receives some credit.(Ex. 1$ = 1 Credit) You can post a job/project for a certain credit.
Anybody can accept the offering, after the delivery and acceptance of the work credit will be taken from the account of the requesting party and transferred to the developer.
At the end you have certain amount of credit you can withdraw it of use to by some services of products etc.
Ali
-----Original Message----- From: squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Avi Bryant Sent: maandag 29 maart 2004 4:37 To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list Subject: Re: How to bring money in the community
On Mar 28, 2004, at 11:21 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
Right now there is no legal structure to collect funds, so people/organization cannot give money. I would like to buy Squeak3.7. I think that there is a difference between open-source and paying to get a good distribution. We should invent our own market.
This is extremely vague and probably silly, but would it be at all useful to start a sort of "squeak of the month club"? Anyone who wanted to join would pledge, say, $10 or $20 a month to go towards squeak-related development, and we would have some kind of voting mechanism to allocate the funds to specific projects each month. Rationally I realize this isn't much different from a bunch of individual $20 donations, but somehow I think people would be more likely to participate in something organized than just choose out of the blue to send someone a cheque. And it might motivate us to get a structure in place that would allow us to accept larger-scale contributions later on...
Do any other open source projects do something similar?
Avi
stéphane ducasse ducasse@iam.unibe.ch said:
Hi Tim
Why don't you try to propose some topics you would like to work on and build a kind of small business model. For my side I would pay for:
- a better UI framework
- a better file system
- a better compiler framework
- a better VM
I suggest you to have a pay pal for VMMaker for example. Do you know if paypal send bills to the payer?
The Slate project (mainly myself and Lee Salzman) is working on all of these things, in ways that are directed to benefit Squeak interests. We have very many interesting results, and I would for example back-port them to Squeak (not really very hard, just not within my current time budget or immediate interest), given suitable donations/payments via my paypal account (associated with my email address; there is another for LOGOS R&D as well).
I'm sure that Craig Latta would be glad to accelerate his feedback into the Squeak community as well, and appreciate the additional funding to do so.
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
-
Ali Riza Sogukpinar -
Avi Bryant -
Brian T. Rice -
Germ�n S. Arduino -
John M McIntosh -
Mark A. Schwenk -
Ned Konz -
Noury Bouraqadi -
Russell Penney -
Samuel Tardieu -
stéphane ducasse -
Tim Rowledge