Re: [evince] Kickstarter campaign for annotation support in evince and poppler-glib

[Martin Spacek <gmane mspacek mm st>]

Thanks for the reply Hashem, and sorry for the long delay.

I did a little more research, and it seems there are sites more approoriate than 
Kickstarter or Indiegogo for open-source software fundraisers and bounties.

Some acronymns:

AoN = All or Nothing: pledge goal has to be reached or campaign fails
KiA = Keep it All: whatever is collected is kept, even if goal isn't met

I found three sites, with the help of 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_crowd_funding_services:

1. https://www.bountysource.com
    - has both limited-time fundraisers and open bounties
    - seems anyone can start a fundraiser or create bounties, not just devs
    - accepts Google Wallet (no fees in 160 countries?), PayPal, eventually BTC
    - AoN or KiA: 10% fee - these are on top of any transaction charges?
    - 10% charged on refunds for failed fundraisers:
      https://www.bountysource.com/fees
    - based in San Francisco, CA, USA

2. https://www.catincan.com
    - has only limited-time fundraisers, no open bounties?
    - only project devs can start a feature fundraiser
    - transactions handled by "Balanced Payments,
      a Level 1 PCI Service Provider"
    - allow BTC payouts:
      https://www.catincan.com/blog/now-processing-bitcoin-payouts
    - AoN only: 10% total fee, including transaction charges
    - no fees charge for unsuccessful campaigns:
        - 
https://www.catincan.com/content/what-if-feature-does-not-reach-its-funding-level
    - site seems a bit slow at the moment
    - based in Cheyenne, WY, USA

3. http://www.freedomsponsors.org
    - more informal and voluntary, anyone can propose amounts,
      then pay when they want directly to the dev
    - accepts PayPal (fees) and BTC (no fees) payments
    - 3% fee?:
        - 
http://blog.freedomsponsors.org/new-rules-for-freedomsponsors-fee-processing/
    - based in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Bountysource seems to be the biggest, and just got $1.1M in VC funding, but I'm 
a bit turned off by the fact that a 10% fee is charged on all pledges, even for 
a failed campaign. That would turn off potential supporters, myself included. 
This is on top of any potential credit card fees.

Catincan seems smaller, but I think I like it better. It seems their 10% fee 
includes credit card fees. However, only devs can propose a fundraiser, and open 
bounties don't seem to exist. Proposals seem to be vetted by the site.

Freedomsponsors seems very unstructured, but I think their fees are lower.

Anyone have opinions on any of these?

> I would think mockups being established before the campaign would allow
> most efficient usage of time (i.e. for whoever who does the work can
> just implement). Designing before the campaign also allows the
> [designers in the] community to provide useful feedback and the
> maintainers to approve.

Sounds good. By mockup, I presume you mean a fairly detailed description of what 
needs to be done, not necessarily a GUI mockup? I'm not very familiar with the 
list of annotation bugs (yet), but I get the impression that much of them are 
non-GUI.

> Anyone who can implement it! Perhaps several people could apply or
> something.

Agreed. As Jose has suggested, maybe open bounties for specific bugs would be a 
better idea than a time limited fundraiser for full annotation support in 
general. If so, that would seem to rule out Catincan.com, but I'm not entirely sure.

> Perhaps the maintainers could sketch out where the code needs
> improvement, and a rough estimation (to be multiplied by 1.5 ;) of how
> long the changes might take them. Standard rate for experienced
> programmers is what, $30-$40 per hour? If it's an inexperienced person,
> they can just get more time. (or more time, less money, and a mentor,
> plus a little bit to the mentor?)

...

> As I mentioned before, hopefully the goals will be established based on
> the opinions of existing devs.

Searching for evince component "pdf annotations" returns 33 bugs:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced;bug_status=UNCONFIRMED;bug_status=NEW;bug_status=ASSIGNED;bug_status=REOPENED;bug_status=NEEDINFO;component=pdf%20annotations;product=evince

Is this all of them? Is there a better way to search for them?

> design beforehand should establish consensus. Perhaps advertising for
> the campaign can be in two steps: 1 inviting people to get involved with
> mockups, then 2 putting the final mockups up on a crowdfunding website

Agreed. But perhaps the first step should be prioritizing bugzilla annotation 
bugs, and/or creating meta-bugs? Could the devs commit some time to this? Where 
should this prioritization be published?

> Perhaps businesses would find this useful too. I'd pay $100. Also,
> highlighting and annotations seems to tie in well with the work
> beginning to enable touch support in GNOME.

Excellent! That means we already have at least $300 of potential contributions, 
without even trying. I suspect the demand for full annotation support in evince 
is very high, and the amount of money that could be raised for it, given the 
right conditions, could be proportionally high.