Ask Slashdot: Attracting Developers To Abandonware? 321
phlawed writes "I've been a Linux user since the previous millennium. I came from OS/2, which I really liked. I quickly felt at home with icewm, using a suitably tweaked config to give me something resembling Presentation Manager. I may have commented on that before. Today, I find myself in a position where my preferred 'environment' is eroding. The only force keeping icewm rolling these days is the distribution package maintainers. I can't code in any meaningful way, nor do I aspire to. I could easily pay for a supported version of icewm, but I can't personally pay someone enough to keep it alive. I'd love it if someone took a personal interest in the code, to ensure that it remains up to date, or to make it run on Wayland or whatever. I want someone to own the code, be proud of it. Is there a general solution for this situation? How do I go about drumming up interest for an old project?"
There is a way (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure you can. Find someone to work on it and get them to sign up for Gittip [gittip.com], while you do the same. You can "tip" them a few cents to several bucks per week for their efforts and they can get paid by you and other supporters.
Re:There is a way (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'm sure a few dollars a week is going to attract a coder to a project be isn't otherwise interested in.
The submitter needs to just face reality - if there were enough people interested in keeping icewm going, it would already be happening.
Re: (Score:2)
In some places a few dollars a week is a good living for something you can do as a hobby.
Anyone that is able to write good code can make a decent living anywhere in the world. I have hired contract programmers from China, Pakistan, India, etc. If they are any good, they can easily make a few hundred USD a week. You aren't hiring rice farmers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately if you give this job to a younger coder, regardless of what country he's from, you stand a very high chance of seeing him go crazy wanting to add new features and just screw it all up.
As a young coder you don't have to tell me twice to learn the lesson -- this is the kind of thinking to promote to get high paying jobs maintining spaghettified cobol code that no one else understands in a bank later in life. Problem is that you old folks are already doing this and they might wake up to it by the time I get there.
rephrase: (Score:3)
rephrase: i really want hollywood to make "throw momma from the train 2: grandma!" I cannot afford to bankroll the whole movie but I will happily buy a ticket when this comes out in theaters. how can I make this happen?
I was originally just going to say this to be a dick, but in rephrasing the question I think we see the answer. Look at the story behind Veronica Mars 2. It was fans who pushed for it and ultimately funded it through KS. The lesson here: even though Hollywood was apathetic, fans won out becau
Is there something similar that can tip a project? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not too interested in an escrow service, but personally I liked tvtwm [wikipedia.org] enough I might join a bounty program to bring it back into the mainstream.
I'd gladly toss a few bucks to fund a bounty to get it back into a major distro.
In "old vs new", usually "new" wins (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Right. Vi remains viable because it's still an incredibly useful text editor that has a fairly large user base. When a project gets to the point where it's just a small number of non-coders that want to see it continue, it's finished. The likelihood of attracting developers is slim, unless they're either using the software or being paid for it.
And being paid for it usually means a substantial number of users as I doubt that the software is worth hundreds of dollars to the submitter. And hundreds on a period
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect you just proved GP's point by mistake.
The old, original vi is quite stagant, the most recent release is from 2005. On the other hand, "the new hotness" like Vim is seeing regular releases.
Does maintaining mean reinventing the wheel? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What's keeping this layout from being re-implemented on any other window manager?
I. Do. Not. Get. It. Either.
Here's his linked comment:
I. Do. Not. Get. It.
It is beyond me why people want to emulate the clutter they have on their physical desk, on their computer.
One does not need a "Desktop Environment".
What I want is a window manager that allows me to set the only sane focus policy (focus follows mouse, click to raise), maintains the user experience and config-file compatibility from release to release and otherwise stays out of the way. Not having to choose between 42 different plugins/extensions/addons and whatnot is also a good thing.
A couple of years ago (*cough*) when IBM killed OS/2, I made the transition to Linux. I soon landed on icewm as my preferred window manager, as it had a "OS/2 Warp" theme. I believe I at one time played with a Presentation Manager-like desktop, but I soon realized it was more hassle than benefit.
icewm has a fully configurable "context-menu" on the entire desktop background (right-click mouse for *your* selection of files, programs, folders, etc), ditto menu for windows (left click), configurable hotkeys (I hit F12 for a terminal), a toolbar with the regular stuff, workspaces and so on.
And for any newbie out there: not running gnome or kde or whatever does not prevent you from launching gnome or kde programs.
Now, please tell me again about the added benefits of having a zillion garish icons on your desktop background?
Or, by the way... don't bother,...
Seriously, let me paraphrase the parent:
What the fuck is keeping the elements of this layout that you like from being re-implemented on any other window manager?
Have you even tried? Hint: You don't need to know how to write code to customize a window manager...
Re: (Score:2)
Totally agree.
I used IceWM for a long damn time. I even wrote some patches (never released) to handle multi-monitor better.
Now I use a combination of openbox/xfce and have it set up with all the behaviours I liked in IceWM (and many that wern't available in IceWM). It's not really that hard.
When a project gets to a point where no-one wants to work on it any more, or even fork their own version off from it, it's time to let it rest.
Become a Free Software Manager (Score:3)
Switch...? (Score:5, Informative)
http://alternativeto.net/software/icewm/ [alternativeto.net]
http://linux.descargargratis.co/icewm/alternatives [descargargratis.co]
A 12-pack of Mountain Dew Code Red... (Score:2)
Workplace Shell (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an OS/2 refugee.
There are parts of KDE that seem much closer to WPS than the other environments. For example, right clicking in Dolphin and "Create New" to make a new blank object is similar to Workplace Shell's templates.
The only parts of icewm that are similar to WPS is the coloring and button layout.
None of the environments on Linux, Windows, or OSX are like the WPS "object oriented user interface." To understand what this is like you have to actually have used OS/2. Everyone else has no idea.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
>Not even the windows version of Object Desktop from the folks at Stardock?
Just because you call something "object" doesn't mean it's object oriented.
I'll give you an example: Say you have an icon. The icon is a representation of an object that does something. You take another object, drop it on the icon, and an output object is created. But it's not just that, this "an object that does something" is available throughout the entire environment. That's the view from the user side.
From the developer e
Re: (Score:2)
You can find out what this is really like by downloading EcomStation.
There is a demo of the coming 2.2 release available at http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/ [ecomstation.com] it's a beta so...
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing's wrong with EcomStation, except the unavailability of modern software. People who buy EcomStation have legacy applications that need to be run on OS/2.
I've used it in VirtualBox for nostalgia reasons.
--
BMO
Time to switch (Score:2)
That reminds me of when uwm went away in pref of twm. Window managers have all sorts of abilities and usu have widgets and event traps, and may have to be rewritten from the ground up to incorporate new ideas. But all is not lost, because you can usually tweak the new ones to behave like the predecessor.
As far as window managers, old is often a subset of new, so my suggestion is to spend a day to adapt some new, maintained software using its config and dotfiles to behave the way you want.
Plan 9, too, is dying. (Score:2)
I feel the same way about Plan 9 / Inferno.
Crowdfunding specific compatibility features (Score:5, Informative)
You might want to check into a class of crowdfunding sites that exist to fund features in free and open source software. The two main ones I could find are:
https://www.bountysource.com/ [bountysource.com]
https://bountyoss.com/ [bountyoss.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Progress (Score:2)
The days when desktop environments improved as time went by seem to have gone. Now they just get more and more annoying with every iteration. Unfortunately that's the way of the world and there's nothing to be done but to grit your teeth and put up with it. Hopefully things will change again before too long.
Start a corporation (Score:2)
Not an eeeevil corporation, not even necessarily a formal one. Post on forums (like you've already done here) with a solid proposal about chipping in (unlike you've done here); start a webpage; whatever. I guess you can even do a Kickstarter, unless it's required for the host to actually do the work. Start negotiating with developers, say that the $ is on its way or in hand.
Seems like a lot of work? It is, and you probably won't do it. But unlike waiting for someone to be inspired to passionately solve the
It's called marketing. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called marketing. RubyOnRails wasn't the first web framework and it certainly wasn't the best. In fact, it was pretty shitty. But it was the first that had a professionally designed website [rubyonrails.org] that advertised its benefits and a screencast that explained and demonstraded them. The pratically invented screencasts. Weeks later slashdot was filled with Rails fanatics.
The first version of the Zope Webapp Server came out roughly a decade before rails and still was notabliy superiour to any other WebFW, Rails included, in all aspects. Yet nobody cared. Why? That's why [zope.org]. Bland website? Nothing flashy? Can't find what I'm looking for? Backend UI without good looking buttons? Won't adhere to the loudmouths and hippsters and won't get attention, won't get critical mass, will lose eventually. It's that simple, even in the FOSS world nowadays (Rails actually sought to that, btw.)
If you really want to bring ICEwm (back) into the limelight, join the team, update their 12 year old website, bundle a new version with good looking modern themes and your tweaked setup, give it a new version number and do a little rattling on related online forums. Once everything is in place, tested, up and running that is. If you've done your job well, userbase will rise again and IceWM 2.0 will the the Hip WM of 2014. Fluxbox, a Blackbox fork, gained hippness status some years back the exact same way. Neat website, one or two nice little extras, screenshots, a well kempt miniblog and everybody went "Oh, look, new and shiny."
That's just about all there is to it. But don't you dare think good marketing isn't work and isn't worth giving as much thought as your projects software architecture. It's more work and - most of the time - even more important than that for the success of a project. Even in FOSS.
Good luck.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I second this. What IceWM needs most is a project manager and an evangelist.
Do a refresh of the website, reach out to all the known historical developers, start a blog about IceWM - little tutorials about what is good about IceWM, triage the bugs the best you can without diving into the code. If the debian and/or Fedora packages are missing, create some or work with the packaging folks to make them better. Convert the revision history to git and put it up on github, if possible.
I think there is a decent
Try KDE4 (Score:2)
You can configure KDE4 pretty well, and even if you can't, you can always get someone to write a plasmoid in QML or python or something. Probably for a bounty you can afford, or even asking nicely, who knows.
Alternatively, there's Gnome 3, but I haven't tested that one much.
Even more alternatively, there's FVWM...you can do pretty much anything on it, if you can afford the time.
I got my KDE using an Unity-like look and using some Unity apis for menus and displays. Didn't need to code at all (and any code I
Re: (Score:2)
What's the KDE base system? 500 megs or more these days? I havent looked at it in years. But tell me, why would I download and install all that for a window manager when I can get one that works better in less than a meg? Really?
Dont get me wrong, KDE is ok. A lot better than GNOME. But I think it's absolutely ludicrous to talk about installing KDE just to get a WM. Which is what we are talking about. ICEWM, it's even in the name.
what's there to be done? (Score:4, Insightful)
I use icewm pretty regularly on some machines. It hasn't changed in years, and I like it that way.
Is there actually anything that needs doing?
Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment (Score:2, Funny)
I still doesn't have a builtin mail client :)
On the plus side jwm has seen quite a bit of development recently.
Re: (Score:2)
Please explain to me in short simple terms why a WINDOW MANAGER needs a "built in" mail tool.
Do NONE of the dozens of existing mail tools work with icewm?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree it has been fairly resistant to breakage/bitrot. That may say something about the code quality.
But do you actually compile from the original tarball? The last tarball is pushing 3 years by now.
Building it gives an indication it needs an oilchange and a new filter.
The bugtracker has a fair number of patches which appear to make sense. As do various distributions.
So the short answer is: maintenance
The longer answer is really up to whoever takes ownership of the code.
Get the government involved (Score:3)
Lotus died a long time ago. Everyone on the planet uses Acrobat for electronic forms. Yet the US Government requires you to use crappy Lotus-based forms. Not only that, you have to submit them with Internet Explorer on Windows due to a crappy digital signature implementation that only works on IE and Windows. So, if you want keep an obsolete technology around, hire a lobbyist.
Like 16-bit DOS applications (Score:2)
Like 16-bit DOS applications and Windows XP, all things eventually reach end of life.
Get over it and move on to something else.
I wouldn't mind seeing icewm going again either. (Score:2)
Icy Goodness (Score:2)
We use Icewm for a Linux/X thin client environment (IceWM and apps runs on the host, not the desktop machine) and it works really well. It is simple, fast, reliable, low-resource, and controllable. I would hate to see it die or fade away. It does lack a few features that I had hoped would be added, but anything other than bug fixes stopped several years ago.
An answer (but didn't quite get your point). (Score:2, Informative)
First, a short background: I played with OS/2 Warp for a really short time, but had a lot of things to do and then Linux came. So, no cigar here.
I have a couple computers -- the most powerful run KDE4(Mageia); for the weaker/older I've been experimenting with Xfce and LXDE and since the latter will use Qt, I'll probably use it where KDE is not possible.
Finally, for really weak machines I've been trying some simpler distros. Porteus is incredible nimble, but I'd rather have a Debian-based distro. Which led m
Motive? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Welcome to Linux (Score:5, Informative)
While on the topic about fragmentation... Android is another type of linux.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
By that metric Playstation 4 is another type of BSD, so I guess it's the same as using linux, right?
Re:Welcome to Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's the same as running BSD :P
Android is not Linux ... (Score:4, Interesting)
While on the topic about fragmentation... Android is another type of linux.
No, its not. End users and nearly all **developers** don't see it. The Linux kernel could probably be swapped out with a BSD kernel and few would notice. Even for those using the NDK and writing some C code they are probably making POSIX calls not calls to anything Linux specific.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny you mention this. When I got my first (and last) Android phone, I was honestly expecting a somewhat functional/scriptable Linux environment with Perl, some web server, and a sane package manager. I imagined that I would be able to script behaviour and set up a cron job to make a call or connect to the net......
I did not even consider, that what I was getting was nothing like that. Besides this little surprise I hated the phone, the experience, everything about it.. including the uselessly slow emulato
Re:Android is not Linux ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Android is not Linux ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Android is not Linux ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
here's to hoping Jolla somehow manages to combine the two worlds.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Funny you mention this. When I got my first (and last) Android phone, I was honestly expecting a somewhat functional/scriptable Linux environment with Perl, some web server, and a sane package manager I imagined that I would be able to script behaviour and set up a cron job to make a call or connect to the net......
What a strange thing to say. Do you expect that of your consumer Wi-Fi router, too? I mean, sure, there are third-party firmwares that will let you do some of that stuff, but that's true of Android, too.
Re: (Score:3)
Amusingly, the 3rd party firmware on my router has more in common with desktop Linux than any 3rd party Android firmware.
Re:Android is not Linux ... (Score:5, Informative)
You're expecting too much.
Android is just another embedded *nix. I'm happy that it's Linux. You shouldn't expect it to have a whole bunch of scripting languages, and unnecessary servers.
With all that said, it is a functional embedded system, where you *do* have the ability. to extend it do to all kinds of neat things.
They provided hooks to just about everything in Java. I'm not terribly delighted with that decision, but it's what they went with.
For most purposes, play is their package manager. For the majority of users, they'll never open a terminal. I do 99% of my phone stuff through the happy little touchscreen. That's the nice interface provided.
If you really want the CLI package manager, you'll find pm [android.com], which does just about everything you'd expect from a package manager.
You can get Apache, Perl, and pretty much whatever else you want on there. Is it going to be like developing for an x86 server or desktop? Not really. It's a different platform.
If you're going to be developing for distribution, and not just for yourself, I'd recommend about the Android way to do it.. If you're doing it yourself, grab a copy of Perl for Android, and enjoy.
If you're going to complain, well, that's up to you. At least research it a little.
Re: (Score:3)
Ya, I've seen this kind of troll before..
Most of his argument is that the UI is different. It's like saying that if you don't have a Gnome/KDE/Unity UI, you're not running Linux..
As a sysadmin, when I'm in a shell on Android, I see Linux. When I'm in a shell on a Mac, I see a Unix. When I open a cmd.exe window on Windows, I see Windows.
I was having some fun with some of my older Android phones a couple weeks ago. I put Dropbear Server II [google.com] on. I had 4 shells open to 4 phones. I was remounting file
Re: (Score:3)
Well, I don't do perl, but it's trivial to cross-compile a Lua interpreter and get it to do stuff inside android. You can populate your scripting enviroment pretty well if you compile your own binaries (it's a bit tricky, not everything works, but you can indeed get stuff working).
I also build bash (git version no less) for my cheap android phone, and you can build most coreutils, sed, awk and stuff. I got a very complete shell working, with all the advantages.
You can also get a debian chroot to work pretty
Re: (Score:2)
You'll want to take a good, hard look at Jolla.
Disclaimer: besides having preordered a Jolla phone, I'm not in any way affiliated with them.
Re: (Score:3)
... but you could have done all that. if you're really salivating about the idea of doing cron jobs for making calls, you COULD HAVE MADE IT HAPPEN if you cared enough. heck, you could have distributed the solution you made for robo calling. sure, it might not be "simple" but it is doable. of course, chances are that if you needed trigger car functionality you could have found an app for it already...
and you can't do that shit on iOS(non-jb) or WP.
you could have used something else than eclipse for developm
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I could have done a lot of things, you are totally right.
Or I could have just set a cron job up or a shell script to do them .
Don't get me wrong, if I cared for phones I would be programming for them probably (I am actually mostly working with Java console apps these days that process/monitor data) ...
The big difference is that when you have the power of command line, you don't have to "write a program" for every little stupid task you want to achieve.
Compare the effort of setting up a cron job (to stay wit
Re: (Score:3)
While on the topic about fragmentation... Android is another type of linux.
No, its not.
Yes it bloody well is.
End users and nearly all **developers** don't see it. The Linux kernel could probably be swapped out with a BSD kernel and few would notice.
That's true of desktop linux as well. If you used gnome on FreeBSD you would not notice.
Re: (Score:3)
Not that I agree with his original point, but...
"Linux and BSD are a bit different when you get to the console."
Actually they arent. Dont let the default shells fool you. You can get bash on BSD and Zsh on linux. Or you could install ksh on either one for that matter.
If you install and use bash and other gnu tools in preference to the BSD tools, you would wind up with GNU/BSD.
Re: (Score:2)
Android is very much Linux. It's just not GNU/Linux. All the GNU utilities that give Linux the functionality and feel of Unix have been stripped out and replaced by running Dalvik on top of the Kernal.
Re: (Score:3)
You are wrong. Android has a C interface that is very POSIX conformant. It is there for applications to use. Google offers all the tools you need to make use of that.
Yes it is (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So? Most of the time you could say the same thing about a Desktop Linux distro.
Re: (Score:2)
So? Most of the time you could say the same thing about a Desktop Linux distro.
Note that I was referring to both the user and the **developer** perspective. Android is a Java based environment, not a Linux based environment, not even a posix based environment.
Re: (Score:3)
While on the topic about fragmentation... Android is another type of linux.
No, its not. End users and nearly all **developers** don't see it. The Linux kernel could probably be swapped out with a BSD kernel and few would notice. Even for those using the NDK and writing some C code they are probably making POSIX calls not calls to anything Linux specific.
So, what you're saying is: RMS was right. It's the userland that makes the Operating System... In that case it should be called GNU/Linux... or just GNU for short...not Linux.
Re:Welcome to Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
That's utterly inane attention-grubbing bullshit that needs to stop because it makes all of us look bad. Linux is not GNU/Linux any more than Windows is "GNU/Windows" after you install Cygwin. Do you use the Cerf/Internet every day, and sometimes drive a Lenoir/Car? What did you have for Albertson's/Lunch?
Re:Welcome to Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is not GNU/Linux any more than Windows is "GNU/Windows" after you install Cygwin.
That is an intellectually dishonest comparison. The more accurate comparison is "MS/Windows to GNU/Linux" - basically all of the userland on Windows depends on MS code. Similarly pretty much all of Linux userland depends on GNU code - gcc and glibc have practically 100% coverage for Linux userland's dependency on GNU software without having to get into the nitty-gritty details of exactly what other GNU software is in a typical distribution.
I'm not particularly in favor of GNU/Linux as a term but I'm not particularly against it either. Right now, in this post, what I am against is bogus arguments either way.
Re:Welcome to Linux (Score:5, Funny)
It's properly referred to as Free Cell/Windows.
Re: (Score:3)
"Right now, in this post, what I am against is bogus arguments either way."
And you did that quite well.
(And if there was a big meta-package I could install on Windows to add all the GNU tools, ported and compiled for Windows, THEN I might talk about GNU/Windows. I keep waiting for someone to package up ReactOS like that to support netbooks, but I digress.)
And btw, I think a big part of why Stallman draws a red line on his terminology here is out of fear of exactly the sort of deliberate confusion that was u
Re: (Score:2)
Except that Android's userland is also open source and many of the drivers are open source.
The exceptions are usually due to the hardware manufacturer, which is a problem on desktop linux as well (Nvidia driver, the assholes at broadcom, etc).
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. The problem is finding enough icewm users to fund a programmer to do maintenance on it. What the OP really ought to be doing is not looking for someone to work on icewm, but for fellow users.
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder if phlawed subscribed to https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/icewm-user [sourceforge.net] whether he might then be able to send out a request for members willing to kick in towards paying a maintainer. With enough users they might also have fewer hops than six-degrees towards finding one.
Re: (Score:2)
He did say he was willing to pay for the software, just not pay a guys salary.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Not precisely. He doesn't think of himself as the only user. Micropayments is a perfectly reasonable model, that has just never taken off. Pertially because there's usually so much overhead to managing them. And THAT is partially because of legal constraints.
OTOH, please note that I did say "partially". There are other reasons that it hasn't taken off, and the "free rider" problem is one of them. There's no obvious way around that. But someone *might* find a way if the legal obstacles were removed, a
Re: (Score:2)
Micropayments is a perfectly reasonable model, that has just never taken off.
And why is that? You are answering:
Partially because there's usually so much overhead to managing them. And THAT is partially because of legal constraints.
Overhead? I can't think of much overhead in sending a fraction of a BTC, or in sending over PayPal. There might be a problem if you are an Amazonian native who lives in a rainforest and has no Internet. But then you aren't very likely to be a user either. Everyone else, wh
He doesn't think of himself as the only user (Score:2)
Not precisely. He doesn't think of himself as the only user.
Well, he's (effectively) wrong on that count.
SourceForge is indicating a total of 35 downloads, and I'd bet at least a couple of them were the result of this Slashdot article.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How to attract developers? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a mod stalker who is modding down my past comments and is too much of a cowardly pussy to admit it or face me.
No, you get modded down because you say idiotic things like this:
Now you know why 90% of FLOSS projects are crap.
Implying that this is different in closed source software. This is false. 90 percent of closed-source software is crap too. Sturgeon's Law applies everywhere.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but it's free market crap that we pay for.
Re: (Score:3)
If you want evidence, just look at the high profile projects that have had annoying little bugs that lasted for months or even years because hunting down the bug and fixing it would be boring.
You mean like Windows itself?
Your argument is nonsense.
--
BMO
The closed source story is the same, except worse. (Score:5, Insightful)
You make this point yourself. If the developer of a closed source package gets bored of it, or it is not profitable (which itself is a high bar for a most producers!), or both, they will drop it. Anyone who came to rely on it is completely stuck, as they cannot fix the most trivial or sexy bugs. They have to live with it until advancing technology and other changes make the program fail completely, and they will have to retrain.
If it is open source, then at least you can recompile and/or port to a new OS. You have the option of paying someone to fix a problem. You have none of those options if the closed-source producer of a package arbitrarily decides to drop it.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Announce a course in window manager design.
2. Collect tuition.
3. Give your students the current source code for icewm.
4. Tell them their assignment is to make icewm compatible with modern Linux.
5. Profit!
Re: (Score:3)
It's frightening how plausible that sounds.
Re: (Score:2)
The end result will be more frightening. Do you want to use a WM that had been written by students? A WM crash may easily ruin your day.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually i was going to suggest that if he can get the code modular enough and organized enough he ight search for universities that insist that students complete some sort of independent project before getting their degree, then seeing if he can get the students and faculty interested.
Re: (Score:2)
Congrats, Chris, that's fine turn-about.
"How do we pay to get this done?
"I know, we'll _charge_ for it!"
Slick, man.
Re: (Score:2)
There are reasons for corporations to support Linux, Apache, Mozilla, and some other projects. But, there is no reason for corporations to support the majority of projects because the corporations don't get anything out of it.
Like Linux, thank Corporations ... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Hey guys, I really love your software... I'd be totally unwilling to pay for it, but I'd really love it if you did all of this work for me, thanks." The problem with the Linux software ecosystem is that it does not run on gratitude alone, as much as some of the users would love to think that it does.
In truth, Linux is largely subsidized by various commercial corporation. If it had remained a hobbyist effort it would be far far behind where it is today.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you see the part in the submission where phlawed says he'd be willing to pay, that he can't realistically pay enough all by himself, and was asking for suggestions useful to his plaint?
Re:Relax the License (Score:4, Informative)
Well, BSD generally attracks fewer developes than GPL, and you need to own the copyright to change the license, but outside of that it's a reasonable idea.
Re: (Score:2)
First off it's not a DE it's a WM. A Window Manager, not some Detestedesktop Environment.
And while it's not my WM of choice, there is a lot to be said for a WM rather than a DE. It has a lot lower requirements in terms of memory or storage or dependencies, and it also has a lot less junk to get in the way of its core functionality. And since the codebase is smaller it's much less difficult to audit as well.
There are several great old WMs out there that are mature, feature-complete, and nearly bug-free at th
Re: (Score:2)
"So what exactly does he want?"
What he wants, and your analysis practically fell across it without you ever noticing, is simply someone to do maintenance work so he can keep using the window manager he knows and loves. What's so wrong with that?
Re: (Score:2)
your testimony might be more compelling if you described why you need 45 workspaces.
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, but "Anonymous Cowards" are not allowed to use the "I" pronoun. There is no "I" there.
Unless you're an "Anonymous Coward" from Apple. You know, iAC? :-)
Re: (Score:3)
That's extreme, do you anticipate there really be enough work to maintain IceWM every single working day? I think asking for $4000/year and taking on 30 low-volume projects would be a better strategy. Next, expand and hire employees. Some of low use projects got to be commercially important for the one org that is using them.