Financial support for 64 bit development / linux distro effort

[tr0910]

In this thread, huge issues are being debated, and very bright minds are volunteering their time, that take unRaid into the future. 

 

64 Bit unRAID running natively on Arch Linux with full hypervisor support

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=30777.0

 

How do we support them? 

 

Here is the place to discuss ways to support them financially.  I'm ready to donate, to the cause but everything will work better if we need to create an agreed upon way.

[jumperalex]

For ironic's part he said he best when he said

I'll have to think a bit more on it as doing this for fun is one thing but the minute you accept other peoples money you have to be sure you can deliver what you promise.

 

I've been in this position myself and it does change both your own sense of obligation and the other person's expectations no matter how much they say they are 100% altruistic about wanting to help with no special treatment expect.

 

More so, there is also the question of how Limetech LLC will decide to integrate / support the effort ... or not.  This whole thing can span the range from a 100% independent project, to a loose collaboration with no business connection, to a middling collaboration with some kick-back to Lime-Tech for sales, to a full blown sub-contracted effort sold via Limetech license sales. 

 

Who knows, it might even progress through all of those steps as an evolution.  In the mean time, the real question is determining if there is a market regardless of who is doing it and who gets paid. 

 

My 2-cents

[tr0910]

For ironic's part he said he best when he said

I'll have to think a bit more on it as doing this for fun is one thing but the minute you accept other peoples money you have to be sure you can deliver what you promise.

 

Who knows, it might even progress through all of those steps as an evolution.  In the mean time, the real question is determining if there is a market regardless of who is doing it and who gets paid. 

 

My 2-cents

 

There definitely is a market.  unRaid sits in a very narrow slice of the market where people are comfortable building their own, and have reasonable upper limits to their expectations.  Ironic's effort pushes unRaid upstream into the more power hungry crowd.  This is good.

 

A much bigger market is the NAS for dummies crowd presently filled by Drobo etc.  unRaid would have to get iSimple in order to move into that space.  These customers expect something cute with blinking lights that they don't have to think very deeply about.  They definitely won't be building it themselves.

[WeeboTech]

I'm willing to contribute a few dollars.

As long as the information is brought back into the unRAID fold.

I figure the cost of a book on KVM could go to someone who can help and teach me a lil through their efforts.

[tr0910]

I'm willing to contribute a few dollars.

As long as the information is brought back into the unRAID fold.

I figure the cost of a book on KVM could go to someone who can help and teach me a lil through their efforts.

 

We have PayPal as a base.  This should work once Ironic gives us his paypal address.  Giving directly to one person is easy.

 

More challenging, how is the money held and who controls it in a collaborative project like this?  Do we set up an unRaid Foundation?

[ironicbadger]

I am posting so I get notified of replies. Nothing really to comment on yet.

 

Although I agree about iSimple being the mainstream market. I guess unraid is definitely a niche product right now and I'm thinking it could be so much more with a little collaboration.

 

Any work I do to the unraid module will ofc be fed back to this community.

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Ice_Black]

I be happy to donate but I would like to see Features & Development Roadmap first with clear information, possibly in bullet points

[jbartlett]

I agree with the others in that the moment money comes into the picture, it changes everything. From what I've gathered, this project is born out fun, of pushing the envelope, to see what you can squeeze out of UNRAID. When people put money towards an unfinished product, they expect results - all the "When's 5.0 going final?" posts are a clear indication of that. We don't want this project to no longer be fun for the Badger and others helping.

 

If Badger is agreeable, maybe $$$ after the product is ready for "production"? Donationware.

[dheg]

I'm willing to contribute a few dollars.

As long as the information is brought back into the unRAID fold.

I figure the cost of a book on KVM could go to someone who can help and teach me a lil through their efforts.

 

We have PayPal as a base.  This should work once Ironic gives us his paypal address.  Giving directly to one person is easy.

 

More challenging, how is the money held and who controls it in a collaborative project like this?  Do we set up an unRaid Foundation?

Going back to the original topic ;-)

 

I really like the unRAID Foundation idea.

However, before proceeding with anything I'd like to have the green light from Tom.

 

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[tr0910]

Going back to the original topic ;-)

I really like the unRAID Foundation idea.

 

I raised that idea tongue in cheek.  A foundation is for people with lots of money who want to give it away and change the world.  Think Rockerfeller, Ford, Gates foundations.  A non-profit established for charitable, educational or scientific purposes.  After incorporation, and many lawyers later, step 8 is to apply to the IRS.  Its a big hammer.  It might be a few steps away from where we are at today. 

 

Still we need a way to make the project proceed without financial constraints.  Thankfully the internet enables most collaboration without additional cost.  If the original PC was the oven for the half baked idea, forums like these are much more powerful....

 

[dheg]

I raised that idea tongue in cheek.  A foundation is for people with lots of money who want to give it away and change the world.  Think Rockerfeller, Ford, Gates foundations.  A non-profit established for charitable, educational or scientific purposes.  After incorporation, and many lawyers later, step 8 is to apply to the IRS.  Its a big hammer.  It might be a few steps away from where we are at today. 

 

Still we need a way to make the project proceed without financial constraints.  Thankfully the internet enables most collaboration without additional cost.  If the original PC was the oven for the half baked idea, forums like these are much more powerful....

 

Well, I'm certainly not a lawyer, although I'm sure there are some around (?)

 

While aiming at becoming the Bill Gates Foundation is a bit high (for now  ) I don't necessarily agree that you need a ton of money to start. With some exceptions, everything in life come small and grow from there. Just of the top of my head, do you know/are aware of any means to set-up a bitcoin-based foundation-like thing? This would allow us to start without IRS constraints (and forgive my ignorance on this, I barely know the legislation in my country  )

 

What about Kickstarter? We could create an experts committee (not necessarily knowledgeable people), set up a project outline, and start a kickstarter project. Does it make sense?

 

PS: I've sent an email to Tom to have his input on this. This for me would be the first step.

[ironicbadger]

Kickstarter is for products that are tangible right? Wouldn't indidegogo be better suited?

 

Tbh I think pre-orders for "unraid extreme" would be the easiest way of going about this. If you then felt inclined to donate above and beyond that ofc that's up to you. This model is far from decided but to me feels like the most logical progression as many of you have stated you'd "happily pay " for such additional functionality.

 

I'm in contact with tom hashing out the details of how we can work together for our mutual benefit. Stay tuned folks!

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

[jumperalex]

I'm in contact with tom hashing out the details of how we can work together for our mutual benefit. Stay tuned folks!

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

This ^^^ is the single best news we could here!!!  In this case the money is the easy part imho.

 

In an effort to not be so clueless going forward I've even started trying to install VirtualBox on my unraid box to see what I can make happen with that and help convince a lurker buddy of mine that virtualization is for him.  He's hoping to run a VM of win7 so he can consolidate his Casa Tunes HTPC setup with his current unraid + PMS.  I say try because I can't get the darn phpVirtualBox webserver running it seems

[ironicbadger]

Hi guys,

 

Thank you for the kind thoughts you've posted thus far. I've written a blog post explaining my position a little more.

 

If you'd like to donate then I've made that possible. It would really be wonderful if you did!

 

Thanks in advance.

 

http://blog.ktz.me/?p=338

 

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