Conservative proposal: let's work with Kiwi IRC

[Eike Hein]

On August 16, 2017 6:58:35 PM GMT+09:00, Ilmari Lauhakangas <ilmari.lauhakangas at libreoffice.org> wrote:
>I want to note that I was intrigued by Eike's mail about a possible Qt 
>Quick -based Konversation reboot. I suggested I could try and gather 
>funding to get it to a releasable state, but he was hesitant because of
>
>the usual issues with FOSS funding (who does the money go to exactly, 
>how to agree on goals etc.). It would be great to have a desktop client
>
>with a GUI that stands out from the crowd. I proposed funding because I
>
>have a lot of experience in promoting FOSS crowdfunding campaigns, 
>including Blender and Krita.

I need to expand on this, because I am now getting approached this morning outside of this thread with comments along the lines of "it's strange you are anti-funding when you are employed to work on FOSS?", which is a little uncomfortable and a misunderstanding that needs clearing up. :)

I was approached about this in the following manner, without any prior relationship, personal introduction or context, just:

2017-08-12.log:[10:25:49] <buovjaga> Sho_: would something like 5000 euros be enough to get Konvi NG to a runnable, presentable state?

I work a full-time job (which does not include Konvi) and have other responsibilities (e.g. serving on the KDE e.V. board), and similar things are true for the other active Konversation developers, so even though I honestly didn't really know what to make of this due to the manner it was submitted (casually in #kde and without any more details), I responded with a line expressing that it might be difficult to agree on requirements, timeline, involved developers and funds distribution. That wasn't because I have an anti-funding stance - it was purely to gauge how much thought they had given to their proposal and what those thoughts were. It was meant as the beginning of a conversation, not a conclusion.

It's not just time commitments - the exact nature of what Konvi-NG might be would be down to decisions made both by the Konvi team and the wider KDE community's (who we strive to support as one of our key user audiences). For example if the KDE community decides to use a chat service other than IRC in the future, I see us trying to support that service. Funding that comes with a requirement to go into a particular direction when the community's direction-setting is currently in process could then be problematic.

I have no general issue with sponsored development of (if planned and executed well). While I'm not sure how realistic it is for Konversation in the current situation, I'm certainly open to talking more, and I'm sure others in the project community are too.

Cheers,
Eike