Financing LilyPond work (was: Unfamiliar articulation symbol (David Kastrup))

[David Kastrup]

SoundsFromSound <address@hidden> writes:

> Guy,
>
> I know what you mean. David is always very helpful, always willing to lend a
> hand, and I've yet to stump him on anything so far! :) 

Well, it's easy to pretend not being stumped if the source code is
available...

> The entire LilyPond team deserves a *huge *thanks for all the hard
> work they have done for the community, and for the dedication they
> continue to show each and every day as LilyPond evolves.

Let me usurp the opportunity to point out that David is being _paid_ by
a subset of the LilyPond community for being helpful (I'd point to the
page explaining my personal situation in more detail, but
news.lilynet.net is non-operative at the moment.  I might have a LaTeXed
draft available if you are interested, however).  And that a rather
large part of his payment comes from people who have already invested
quite large amounts of time and effort in LilyPond.

Of course, who else would be enthusiastic enough to also invest money?
I am a bit behind in my reports, but I'll attach the latest one (which
is not actually the best sales pitch since July was a bit like pulling
teeth).  But maybe git gives a better sales pitch:
git shortlog -n -s --since "1 year ago"
   434  David Kastrup
   175  Phil Holmes
    80  Jean-Charles Malahieude
    69  Francisco Vila
    55  Keith OHara
    49  Trevor Daniels
    42  Mike Solomon
    41  Julien Rioux
    19  James Lowe
    16  Federico Bruni
    15  Benkő Pál
    15  Marc Hohl
    14  Janek Warchoł
    13  Mark Polesky
    13  Thomas Morley
    13  Werner Lemberg
[...]

Of course, if you actually sum all other commits, you'll find that while
my paid work is the single largest item, it is only a fraction of what
actually is being done.  And of course, commits range from trivial to
complex.  And removing the --since option shows that we are actually
talking about standing on the shoulders of giants here:

  6382  Han-Wen Nienhuys
  3225  Graham Percival
  2476  Jan Nieuwenhuizen
  1508  Francisco Vila
  1311  John Mandereau
   932  David Kastrup
   917  Reinhold Kainhofer
   785  Joe Neeman
   598  Werner Lemberg
   585  Jean-Charles Malahieude
   583  Trevor Daniels

At any rate, if you can't think of any better way to contribute to
LilyPond than keeping me on the project, check out the report and think
whether you'd like to pitch in.  A non-trivial part of my current
numbers comes from a rather staggering one-time contribution this
spring, but that will run out sometime late next year and without other
payments picking up, this will be hard to sustain.  To put some
perspective to it: my last "regular" job paid about 4 times (plus half
of social security which I have to cover whole now) what I am trying to
get somewhat regularly now.  Of course, I can work from home and on
stuff I like, but even taking that into account I can consider me a net
contributor without bad conscience.

At least at the current rates...

Feel free to contact me for my account data if you want to shift the
balance...

All the best

-- 
David Kastrup

jul13.pdf
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