[dot] KDE Web Dev 2005 Fund Raiser

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1134848565/

From: Eric Laffoon <eric at kdewebdev.org>
Dept: almost-missed-a-year
Date: Saturday 17/Dec/2005, @11:42

KDE Web Dev 2005 Fund Raiser
============================

   It is hard to believe that our last official fund raiser was in mid
October of 2004 [http://dot.kde.org/1097981481/]. As a member of the
community you might think that represents a lot of success for our fund
raising efforts [http://kdewebdev.org/donate.php] as we have done fund
raisers as often as every few months. Nothing could be further from
truth. In actuallity we were already behind when a $100 a month sponsor
was forced to pull out. Fortunately his heartfelt plea was amazingly
successful at replacing over a year of his sponsorship. Unfortunately we
did not come close to replacing the sponsorship amount.  Having been so
busy we have not been able to do a fund raiser and it occurs to me our
developers need something special for Christmas. Will you help make that
happen [http://kdewebdev.org/donate.php]?

     Normally we like to have something fun to announce, but right now
we are all so busy... In fact we will have three distinct and fun
announcements within a few weeks. We've been working on them all, but
time is short. Here's what I want our user base to know. Andras is an
incredible asset, but he's terribly underpaid. I need to give him a
raise. He has financial needs and we don't want him to be forced to be
lured away for those needs, do we? My business is finally starting to
really do well, but I need to reinvest. My return gift is planned and in
the works. It is an investment in several superior ways to raise funds
and it's going to take thousands of dollars of my money. I'm not going
to discuss them at the moment because I'll be too busy to do much of my
usual chatting for the next week. I just hope our users can help out for
what could be the last of these drives. One more time for Andras.

     Of course he is not the only developer we sponsor. There is also
Kommander. This year Michal got married and for some time was too busy
to work on Kommander. I also owe him money and we have been very close
to releasing some new and fun things like database tools that integrate
into Quanta. Kommander is planned to have new features that will make it
much more powerful and exciting. It has the potential to be the easiest
and most powerful tool a non programmer can use to quickly make and
share utilities and extentions to existing programs. Now that Michal is
available I have not even had much time to talk with him, but I want to
be working with him on that, and it will require more funds.

     I'm really sorry we couldn't get all our holiday surprises ready
for you in time, but we will have some fun announcements soon after. I
hope you can help me to show some appreciation to our sponsored
developers. We need donations [http://kdewebdev.org/donate.php], but we
especially want new sponsors [http://kdewebdev.org/donate.php]. Many
people are getting a lot of value from Quanta and Kommander. If you are,
please consider returning a little. As good as these applications are we
have grand plans for improvements we know you'll love. You can help us
to work on them without the distraction of having to look for money. My
best to everyone for the holidays.