Re: [Audacity-devel] Sourceforge

[Logan L. <pr...@pr...>]

The logistics of taking donations pretty much requires that one person handle 
receiving the money and taking care of the account, without setting up a 
mini-organization to do it.  Taxes must be taken out (techincally) and paid 
for by that individual, provided one doesn't go through the effort to make a 
non-profit organization (which would allow donors to use it as a write-off).  
 The most logical person would be Dominic, if he's willing to take up another 
task.  I would normally doubt how many donations Audacity would recieve, but 
I just took a look at the download statistics of the latest version (0.98b 
for Win, 0.98 for everything else), and it's received about 270,000 
downloads.  If even 50 people donated from those downloads, Audacity could 
easily make up its bandwidth costs.  Pay pal, money order, and check would be 
the most convenient way to accept payment.  

Even if Sourceforge doesn't start charging (or go out of business) in the 
near future, it might still be useful to start building up the money.  

If Sourceforge has a sudden closing, I have a personal dedicated Linux server 
on a T1 I'd be happy to donate for hosting, at least until a new service is 
found.  If nothing else I can be a mirror.  I'm sure one of us can find 
reasonably-priced long term hosting with the features Audacity requires.

Logan



> Wow, that is interesting.  I don't blame SF for advertising their own
> services, or things that they need, but it's a bit of a surprise.
>
> It might not be a bad idea to think about what we would do if
> SF bit the dust.
>
> [I just downloaded our nightly CVS tarball again, just in case!]
>
> I think that if Audacity started accepting donations, we'd get
> some money.  As long as we're only looking for help with
> hosting and bandwidth, a little bit would go a long way.
>
> For example, dreamhost.com offers their "Code Warrior" package
> for $39.95 a month, which would offer us a CVS repository,
> nearly 1 GB of storage, 7 domains, and lots of mail accounts.
> I'm currently using them for my web site and personal email,
> and I'm very happy with their service.  (Yes, I know they
> have downtime.  What makes all the difference in the world is
> how they respond when you tell them something's down.  They're
> usually already on top of it, and they're always honest.)
>
> If we got even more money, I think it would be fair to use
> it to subsidize higher-end audio hardware for us to play
> with.  If I had an 8-channel audio card, you'd better believe
> I'd spend a weekend getting Audacity to support it!
>
> Anyway, I don't think we're at that point yet, but we should
> definitely think about:
>
> * What we would do if Sourceforge suddenly shut down, or
>    suddenly dropped their quality of service below an acceptable
>    threshold
>
> * What we would do if Sourceforge started charging
>
> * Independent of that, when and how we should start accepting
>    donations.
>
> - Dominic
>
> Joshua Haberman wrote:
> > * To Audacity (jha...@up...) wrote:
> >>* Matt Brubeck (mbr...@cs...) wrote:
> >>>_______________________________________________________________
> >>>
> >>>Have big pipes? SourceForge.net is looking for download mirrors. We
> >>> supply the hardware. You get the recognition. Email Us:
> >>> ban...@so...
> >>
> >>Whoa, is this your sig or did SourceForge tack this on?
> >>
> >>Joshua
> >>
> >>--
> >>Joshua Haberman  <jo...@ha...>
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________________________
> >>
> >>Have big pipes? SourceForge.net is looking for download mirrors. We
> >> supply the hardware. You get the recognition. Email Us:
> >> ban...@so...
> >
> > Well I guess that answers my question.  I don't really have a problem
> > with it, since it's asking for a donation to sustain what we're already
> > getting for free.  Interesting to see though.
> >
> > Joshua
>
> _______________________________________________________________
>
> Have big pipes? SourceForge.net is looking for download mirrors. We supply
> the hardware. You get the recognition. Email Us:
> ban...@so..._______________________________________________
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