Supporting LilyPond development financially (was: Editing slur markings in LilyPond)

[David Kastrup]

soundsfromsound <address@hidden> writes:

> Do you guys have a PayPal donation link or something where perhaps I
> could send a little something your way?  I couldn't find anything on
> the website... :)

Then I need to rethink my strategies.  LilyPond does not have a central
donation collection agency.  At the current point of time, I am the only
developer as far as I know who does not have any source of income apart
from financial contributions from other developers and LilyPond users.

The "sales pitch" for that would be at
<URL:http://news.lilynet.net/?The-LilyPond-Report-24#an_urgent_request_for_funding>,
and all of the following reports contain information of how I fared.
The last report of my finances has not yet been published in a LilyPond
report; I append it here.

If you have LilyPond checked out, doing something like

git shortlog -n -s --since "6 months ago"|head
   191  David Kastrup
    69  Francisco Vila
    69  Phil Holmes
    43  Jean-Charles Malahieude
    41  John Mandereau
    39  Trevor Daniels
    34  Keith OHara
    34  Mike Solomon
    29  Graham Percival
    26  Till Rettig

makes it obvious that this kind of arrangement indeed makes it possible
for me to do quite a bit of concerted work on LilyPond.  However, if you
_sum_ all the numbers you'll still find that the large majority of work
on LilyPond is done by everybody else and is very much a community
effort.

Also I expect the numbers for translators (coordinated by Francisco) to
go up sharply again once they shoft focus to 2.17 (which should be soon,
as 2.17.1 is getting out at the end of the week according to Phil).

There are a variety of tasks (like scanning user and bug lists for bug
reports as part of our Bug Squad, or testing and reviewing proposed
patches using ready-made tools) that are done by dedicated users and
helpers of LilyPond, and fresh blood is always welcome.

So if you are thinking of contributing to LilyPond, the most directed
contribution you can do is working on the things you find most
interesting and sharing your work.

If you still think you would also like to contribute money, it is my
opinion that the kind of development that I do might be worth making
more sustainable.  Of course, I am only a single developer and so I do
not "scale": give me ten times the money and I can't actually do more
than I do currently, but I might be around for quite longer, and others
will then be able to back off a bit: there are some who are _really_
supporting me a lot.

All the best

-- 
David Kastrup

sept-oct.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document