[Fsfe-uk] GNU Herds pledgebank

[John Sennesael]

>
> As job site complement,  we would like to add a new feature to GNU Herds,
> to be able to sum lots of 2 cents to create a user's predefined job offer.
>
> Please, let us know if you think we must not develop such feature or if we 
> must do something special.  As usual we will adapt to your requirements.
>
>
> Dave Crossland wrote:  (draft)
> >/ Here is the recipe for any user to kickstart the development of a free/
> >/ software project with no initial funding./
> >
> >/ 1. Estimate the cost of the initial development of the project, "£A"/
> >
> >/ 2. Estimate the number of people who want that development work done/
> >/    and are willing to pay for it, "B"/
> >
> >/ 3. Divide £A by B to make £C./
> >
> >/ 4. Set up a pledgebank-joboffer for your project for 2B people at £C cost./
> >/    (more people pledge than pay)/
> >
> >/ 5. Publicise the pledgebank until enough people sign it/
> >
> >/ 6. Collect their money - perhaps using the SFLC Conservancy or your/
> >/    own USA 501c3(?) non-profit organisation to make payments tax/
> >/    deductible in the USA and encourage corporate donations./
> >
> >/ 7. Post a job ad on gnuherds.org or similar for developers. Pay/
> >/    them Google Summer of Code style./
> >
> >/ 8. Enjoy./
>
> >/ Its Tiemann's original business plan for Cygnus, as told by David/
> >/ Harding [1] and combined with the newer pledgebank concept./
> >
> >/ [1]: http://s3.amazonaws.com/sfd-2007/sfd-2007.ogg/
>
>
>
> Feature development is a priority for us.  Later I will do what be needed to 
> get the GNU Herds project being officially part of The GNU Project and to 
> transfer my copyright to the FSF.
>   
It would be interesting if donators could sign up with an account and
'deposit' an undefined amount of money, then receive back credits to
distribute among projects/pledges/whatever whenever they want to.

For example:
Someone could donate, say, $500, and give $50 to 10 projects whenever
they feel like it, instead of making 10 separate donations, and getting
charged the paypal fee 10 times.

The advantage of a system like this would be:
    1) You can donate to multiple projects/pledges with only 1 paypal fee.
    2) This would allow for micro-donations. People can donate $1 or
less to as many projects as they want. Since normally, a low donation
would be absorbed by paypal fees.
    3) People would feel like they have more control over their
donations, which might encourage them to donate more.

A site with a similar system exists:
    http://www.donationcoder.com/Donate/Credits.php
The author of that site has written an interesting article reflecting
one year of the site's operation which includes some interesting
observations related to the dynamics of donations:
    http://www.donationcoder.com/Articles/One/index.html

I have been involved with that site and community for a few years now,
and I'd love to see a similar system implemented for Free software.