[Gta04-owner] GTA04A4 Group Tour - next steps

[Bob Ham]

On 04/04/2012 11:31, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> Hi Bob,
> 
> Am 04.04.2012 um 12:14 schrieb Bob Ham:
> 
>> On 03/04/2012 18:04, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>>
>>> We already have ordered most of the components so
>>> that production is planned to start after the easter weekend.
>>
>> Great stuff :-)
>>
>> Do you have any plans for future group buys or other schemes?  Or are
>> you just waiting to see what the fallout is from the present scheme?
> 
> Well, we are trying to find a better scheme, but did not make much progress.
> Maybe sort of a subscription or auction scheme.

I had the idea of a scheme with a fixed length of time but a variable
cost.  So, people pledge to buy a phone whose cost is guaranteed to be
equal to or less than a particular value (ie, the "from stock" cost) but
where the cost lowers the more people pledge.  This would need careful
planning of the cost bands and that information would be needed up front.

You could also allow pledges to include an additional fixed "donation"
above the variable cost.  These donations would then be included in
calculating the total capital for the group and would reduce the
per-participant cost appropriately.  This would allow people to
contribute effectively to the group, beyond their pledge.  This would
benefit the donator in three ways, (1) it would give them a warm fuzzy
feeling because they are helping their fellow GTA04 enthusiasts :-), (2)
it would increase the appeal of the scheme, drawing in more participants
and reducing the cost further, and (3) the increased appeal would mean
more users and more developers working together on the platform in the
long term.

> But I have analysed the whole situation and now think the key issue
> for finding more potential buyers within the linux and open source
> community is the lack of a really complete device.

I agree.

> Regarding an application shop: would it be interesting to software developers
> to earn some money through a central shop (with portal, search facility,
> payment management) and for users to get higher quality applications by
> paying some cents? Some percentage could be used to support future hardware
> development. I.e. similar to the revenue sharing model of Apple?

Personally, I don't like this idea.  Another possibility would be to set
up a system for users to offer "bounties" for particular work on
relevant software.  There have been other projects that have set up such
systems.  The biggest that comes to mind is GNOME.  However, looking at
their site it seems as though this was not successful.  There seem to be
some useful lessons learned though:

  http://live.gnome.org/BountiesDiscussion

  http://dneary.free.fr/gimp_bounties.html

-- 
Bob Ham <rah at bash.sh>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }