Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Of MagnaTune and Money

[Peter <rhythmbox-devel maubp freeserve co uk>]

Matt wrote:
> I'm all for the gnome or FS foundations.  I think doing anything other
> than donating it would be unduly complicated.

I'm just an RB user - and donating to one of those bodies sounds fine.

On the other hand, my first idea was you should spend (some) of the 
money buying or subsidising purchase of common mp3 players (e.g. recent 
ipods?) in order to improve their support and integration.

e.g. reading and writing tracks (including transcoding when required), 
support of album art on the player, pulling track play/rating statistics 
from the player (e.g. for submission to last.fm).

If you want to avoid any one developer ending up with a free player, you 
could agree to sell the item on ebay afterwards (returning the money to 
the pool).

Or, you might want to do this in a "pass the parcel" style in order to 
benefit as many projects as possible: say two month loans to in turn to 
Amarok, Rhythmbox, Gnome desktop integration, etc.

This does all depend on there being some suitably motivated (existing) 
developers, who could be trusted not to just walk off with their "free 
ipod" never to be heard of again.

In whatever way this idea is handled, it would be more complicated that 
just making a donation to the FSF (or other body), but the benefits are 
more immediate and focussed.

Peter