Re: Supporting my work on LilyPond financially

[David Kastrup]

Christ van Willegen <address@hidden> writes:

> On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 11:18 PM, Chris Crossen <address@hidden> wrote:
>> I just wanted to re-emphasize that original point and hope the
>> discussion has convinced a few more of us to make a small, but
>> regular donation.
>
> If everyone on the mailing list chipped in 1 euro a month, that would
> get David out of financial problems, probably for the rest of his
> life...

Just for the record, I am not having "financial problems": I am trying
to make my income match my comparatively modest expenses as nothing else
will work in the long run.  But that does not mean that bankruptcy is
around the corner.  What it does mean is that at some point of time a
different job may be around the corner.  And I would not wait with
starting to look until things became desperate.

So payments for my work on LilyPond will not be to "get me out of
financial problems": the problem, namely that income and expenses have
to match, is not of temporary nature and not one of personal mishap.
Payments for my work on LilyPond are basically you supporting a cultural
charity for the public good that in turn pays me regularly for providing
that public good.  Except that we've optimized away the charity in the
middle.

So if you want to feel good, it is more for doing something good for
LilyPond, its community, music and Free Software.  Not so much for me.
Since I don't exactly evoke the warm fuzzy feeling of a big-eyed puppy,
that's probably a good thing.

> A slight over-exageration, perhaps, but not far off I think.

I think you are overestimating the readership here.  I recently checked
the Cc list for my reports (so far nobody asked for getting removed from
that list) which consists of all people who have contributed so far.
I was actually surprised that it was about 80 entries long.  True,
containing quite a few entries for one-time contributions or short
periods of time, but nevertheless the number does not appear negligible
compared to the active readership here.

The thought "if everybody contributed just a little" seems compelling.
It's actually my experience that those who pledge to contribute a
monthly payment less than €10 tend to stop after few months, probably
because they think it does not make a difference.

So unless one manages to get along on lots of small one-time payments
(implying an even larger audience one has to reach), I don't see how
I can get around tapping those who are enthusiastic about LilyPond, are
"invested" in it, more than those who care only a little.

At any rate, this _is_ an impressive community.

-- 
David Kastrup