Asking for donations in Plasma
Asking for donations in Plasma
Why do we ask for donations so often? Because it’s important! As KDE becomes more successful and an increasing number of people use our software, our costs grow as well: Web and server hostin…
Seems like a reasonable donation prompt; it's infrequent, unobtrusive, and can be easily dismissed and disabled. Some people are so sensitive to the idea of any sort of soliciting that they forget projects do need money to function.
Yup. I like their just in December approach too. I have a problem with distrohopping so I'm often re-setting up my system. Every time I do, Thunderbird pops up donation prompts both in the app and in my browser. I get why they do it, but it's annoying when that happens. KDE's approach avoids this pitfall.
Some people just don't like their OS being used for that purpose and want it to be just a tool that shuts up and does exactly as it's told and no more. I can see that point of view. Our computers aren't free billboards. It's like when car dealers stick their own custom logo on the cars they sell to people.
I understand this, but we need to be reasonable and avoid extremes. This software is extensively free (as in beer) and requires development support. As long as the prompt doesn't cross any lines into exploitive territory I think it's fine. It would be nice for them to have explored other fundraising avenues first though and have saved this as an exhaustive "final" option.
A lot of people here have such a bizarre stance.
People have put work into this, for free. And the moment they ask for support, you immediately bring the pitchforks out, over a singular pop-up you can permanently disable? That's just plain disrespectful, at the very least
Unfortunately, there has always been the issue that a not-insignificant percentage of users of FOSS software believe the FREE part means "free as in beer" and take umbrage when asked to contribute.
I've long been a proponent (and I know I'm in a minority) that has advocated for a shift in the marketing of FOSS applications from "donation based" to "value based". Meaning that the expectation is that if you enjoy the software, you pay an amount that you believe is commensurate to your use. This is voluntarily of course...if you can't pay, than please use it and enjoy it. But those who can pay, should pay...at least a little bit, to offset the costs for those who can't.
It's more or less that the wording of FOSS apps needs to change so that you are expected to contribute if you can.
Just my opinion. Like I said, I know I'm in the minority. Just not a fan of the percentage of users that has always existed that (falsely) think that asking for money for your project is somehow anathema to the Open Source ideal and whine whenever they're asked to contribute.
I have over €1500 donated to opensource projects.
I have only once bought a commercial software license worth €7/lifetime.
Maybe donate 50 cents for every hour you used the software and it was useful to you.
That would be 1000 €$ per year if you work with Linux full time.
Let’s see some commercial software:
Microsoft Office 365 is 70 $€ per year. Adobe Suite around 700 $€ per year. IntelliJ IDEA about 170 $€ per year. Affinity Suite is 170 $€ once. Reaper is 60 €$ for a discounted license. Full featured media player like Elmedia costs 20 $€. BBEdit costs 60.
The FOSS windows and Mac FTP client Cyberduck asks for a minimum 10 €$ donation. It won’t prompt you for a donation if you bought a license. The Duck applications are all pretty nice.
I like that terminology. I use some very high quality, high visibility FOSS software and sometimes feel bad that I more frequently donate to smaller projects that bring me value by filling a specific want or need that no one else is working on.
I'm not against the idea, but I do think it's a bit unfair. There are dozens of projects KDE relies on that never even get the chance to ask for donations this way, simply because they don't need a GUI.
I believe KDE should at least offer to share the donations with other projects, projects that would otherwise have no voice. Something like the old Humble Bundle donation method would work really well, and let users to choose how their money is allocated.
While I understand where you are coming from. That goes for a lot of projects in general. Not to mention that KDE is literally an example of the thing you are talking about. KDE has an entire ecosystem of libraries that anyone can use called kde frameworks with many examples of these libraries being used on various projects large and small outside of KDE. They don't see a dime from this either. I recall a conference on TechHut's youtube channel spotting KDE's frameworks in the wild being used by companies at the event.
The one change I would make would be adding a "never" button to the notification so you don't have to disable it in the settings if you don't want it
Or actually "Don't show again" would probably be better phrasing
From experience with Windows "freeware" some of us have seen what happens when such pop-up notices become commonplace. It is not pretty.
This isn't Windows, and this isn't freeware
So the reason it makes me uneasy is that at the same time as I do want KDE to succeed, I do not want this tactic of begging for money in annoying little on-screen pop-ups to succeed. If it does, then perhaps it might spread to other free software projects. If all of the hundreds of them that go into a linux distribution start feeling free to make their demands it will be a real mess. As some old philosopher said: To judge the morality of an action, consider what would happen if everyone did it.
I remain an Xfce user. They also accept donations.
It's not complicated.
It's an ad.
There's no version of advertising I will ever be OK with.
Now this is much better than getting ads in your Start Menu.
As long as the “No Thanks” button is a one and done go-away button, I think this is a decent idea!
It's once per year, easily dismissed, and can be permanently disabled. Seems entirely reasonable for a piece of free software that someone would use everyday
I do suspect a small but vocal crowd of people will spread doom and gloom about it on social media anyway, of course.
I see they're here already
No problem... Once a year is fine. It's a non-profit based in Germany...
Thunderbird shows it once at every startup...
Thunderbird shows it for a at every startup
Honestly didn't realise till you pointed that out. I'm so used to seeing it that it doesn't register to me what it's saying anymore. Probably for the best that KDE only does it once a year; if it were daily I'm sure it wouldn't even register to people that it's asking for donations.
Thunderbird was dead until it added a donations banner then used the donations to hire some programmers.
KDE is great and this reminded me that I wanted to donate anyway.
Sorry, I've already donated all the Plasma I can safely donate! /s jic :)
I kinda thought this was some new crowd funding scheme...
I didn't get that notification yet,but when I do,l'll be sure as shit to donate as large amount as I can afford.
Edit: I know I can and have donated already,but just to highlight the idea
I personally think once a year is not enough. Every 6 months might be better. Also people already spend a lot during December that they might not prioritize donating to KDE.
For those complaining.... Well I don't know what to say to them. Such a big complex software which is 100% free should be allowed to remind us that they need money.
Don't forget they said it's running as a daemon specifically so you can easily disable it if it triggers you so much.
it's running as a daemon specifically so you can easily disable it
It occurs to me that even if I were a KDE user, I probably wouldn't see it. I'm not a DE developer, so I'd be getting the packages through Debian, and the people who package things for Debian tend to remove such prominent features that for the users are all cost and no benefit.
I suspect that none of the people who are "complaining" are doing so because it's some kind of personal inconvenience that they'd find intolerable. The only thing it does to make my day worse is to slightly cheapen the reputation of the KDE project, and by extension — since it is such a popular and highly visible project — that of free software in general.
FOSS in general needs better means of financial support. While the software is free and libre, developer time is not, and ultimately they gotta eat and pay bills. I hope they get positive results and don't catch much unnecessary flak.
I mean, at least I'm not paying $200* for the privilege of being advertised to... I'd like an option to disable it permanently in the popup but it seems mostly reasonable?
^* This is the first price I got for a Windows licence when I searched for it. I know you can probably get them cheaper, but that's the price they're advertising, so eh.^
There is an option to disable it permanently. Otherwise it is once a year and easily dismissed
Why?
People spend countless hours building the software you use for free. Now they need to buy actual hardware yo build and test that software and what? They have to pay with their own money besides all that time they spent already so that you can continue to use this for free?
You're not forced to pay anything, they're asking for small donations
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Have you visited Wikipedia lately? I'll gladly donate to KDE when I see this next time.
cool and good. thunderbird is also very good about this and more projects should present their donation stuff just as tastefully
Instructions unclear, blood is spinning down in the centrifuge.
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What are you talking about? Microsoft is charging for HEIF, HEIC, and looking to do it with AV1 and AVIF. Intel started development of EFI in the titanium days as a new standard for servers running unix before it became an open standard. Microsoft wasn't the only one involved in the standard but apple, redhat, hp, Intel, amd, and a laundry list of hardware/software manufacturers.
Most all the innovation happens in enterprise space with servers running unix/Linux. User operating systems are an afterthought when these features are initially conceived.
It’s implemented as a KDE Daemon (KDED) module, which allows users and distributors to permanently disable it if they like.
Eh. I guess good enough.
But I'm still opposed on principle.
Slippery slop but if they do this once on install with clear explanation. I wouldn't care. Don't badger me tho
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i honestly don’t see the issue here. kde is free, and the popup really doesn’t seem all that annoying.
Wow. Just when their excellent marketing tactics over the past few months had almost persuaded me that I might give KDE another try some day.
well thats unfortunate. Personally I'd rather click away one message per year while knowing I donate 40 euros every quarter than having the project die or degrade in the long run.
I think if you complain, you should contribute(either through effort or donation) to make such pop ups unnesseccary.
KDE Plasma albeit a bit bloated in default state is freaking amazing and getting better with every update.
Enjoy whatever DE you Like and complain as you like but just complaining is not going to fix Problems
I've contributed to various projects when I had money, but this would probably make me less likely to do so if I were a user. It's unquestionably true that some people "hate pop-ups and this is going to turn them off" and I am among them.
I use it. I like it. But i admit its fucking bloated to hell.