Re: [xine-devel] xine sponsoring

[Rich W. <rj...@he...>]

On Tuesday 20 Nov 2001 9:40 pm, Guenter Bartsch wrote:
> Hi everyone,

Hi

[snip]

> Oki, here are some ideas, how about...
>
> - being sponsored by a company?=20

I should imagine that the main way the free software gets sponsorship is=20
through one of the distros. E.g. SuSE with KDE, RedHat with the Kernel, e=
tc.=20
Perhaps if we could convince some distro to invest in Xine a a generic me=
dia=20
player to put on the front of their boxes...

I suppose with many Xine people being European (and esp. German), SuSE is=
 the=20
obvious choice here. I've no idea if anyone should approach the distros o=
r=20
whether it is a 'don't phone us, we'll phone you' situation.

> - a sponsoring page on the xine website?

This would be a possiblity (e.g. a page asking for people to sponsor the =
DVd=20
collection of James and I :)). Although I, myself, would feel a little=20
a-moral if I accepted a donation personally without sharing some of it wi=
th=20
the rest of the Xine community.

OTOH, I would feel equally as bad if I received money intended to sponsor=
,=20
e.g. better sync in Xine or more output plugins as I don't extensively wo=
rk=20
in this field.

I think personal developer donations could quickly become rather sticky=20
(although I'm in no way opposed to people sponsoring my DVD collection :)=
).

> - a donation page on the xine website?

I think this would be somewhat better. Perhaps Guenter or a trusted party=
=20
could issue 'expenses' to Xine developers from this central account. Howe=
ver,=20
the party would have to be someone everyone trusted to perform this duty=20
fairly and there may be tax/legality worries.

I've no idea how difficult German law makes the setting up of limited=20
liability organisations or the like which may be able to act as a 'shell=20
company' to Xine in much the same way as SPI act for Debian.

> - developers working for a company?

Again, I'd say with either a) the distros (esp. SuSE in Germany) or b) wi=
th=20
an embedded video company. The problem with b) is the education many=20
companies need about Free Software and also making sure that a contract m=
eans=20
that the Intellectual Property you generate on a company's pay-roll eithe=
r=20
belongs to you or that you have the right to choose distribution=20
terms/licenses.=20

> - a nice, blinking banner ad on the xine front web page ... ok, just
>   kidding ;>

Although has anyone noticed the sudden presence of such a thing in the CV=
S=20
browser on SourceForge...

> oki, enough from me - can't wait to hear your opinions on this matter :=
-)

How about acting as a (freelance?) consultant for integrating Xine techno=
logy=20
into a product? Just a suggestion.

Of couse a few extra pounds (dollars, euros, deutch-marks, whatever) this=
=20
Christmas would come in useful... especially as some of us are going to t=
he=20
US to visit our g/f :)

Rich

--=20
Rich

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech=
=2E
=09=09-- Mark Twain