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I don't download stuff I didn't pay for. However, I also think it's very rude to sneak crap like this into my hardware, movies, game and music.

As a result, I don't have an HDCP compliant monitor or Blu-Ray drive. I haven't bought any DRMed games or music in the last 5 years or so. I don't have any Apple products or a Steam account. I intentionally avoided laptops with BluRay drives and TPM. The few videos I bought were DVD, which is utterly broken, and as soon as I find a source of DRM-free downloads, I'm switching to that.

I won't pirate it, but it disgusts me so much, I won't touch the legal stuff with a 10 foot pole. My money now goes instead to the EFF, FSF, pirate party, and initiatives like Musopen and the Humble Bundle.

Add in rehearsal times and I have serious doubts about the feasibility of doing this for $13,000.

They've already collected $30k, and it's still going. It went up by $150 during the few minutes it took me to make a donation, and, given it's still got 50 hours to go before it closes, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up with a figure around $60-80k. Of course, it's more likely if you do your part - and it's also that rare case of actually being able to meaningfully vote with your wallet.

It's worth noting that it does not have to be a pure donation - depending on how much you give, you may also request (or forgo, it's up to you) some nifty stuff. And, hey, for a measly $3500 you can single-handedly pick one of the pieces they're going to record.

Tell that to the thousands of people who together pledged over $200,000 to Diaspora on Kickstarter.

http://www.ultimaaiera.com/ is more updated than Ultima: The Reconstruction, which hasn't been updated in quite some time. Also you might be interested in my Ultima Online-inspired Sanctimonia, still under heavy development: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eightvirtues/sanctimonia It's for Linux only and isn't a mod.

"Open" doesn't mean "we must do what others tell us against our will". Why doesn't the people who want Firefox to use an external library, and assuming they can't code, use for example Kickstarter to raise some funds and hire someone to fork Firefox and do it?

Oh, you want people to do what you want against they're own views for free...

Sounds like a return to the days of commissioned art.

Crowdsourced commissioned art? Sounds like a good plan to me, actually. Kickstarter funds a wide variety of projects (not just art) in a similar manner.

If you're good enough, people will make donations.

I don't think that "give it away and pray" is a good business model.
I don't think most people will pay if given the option to get it for free.
That doesn't mean that "free" can't be a part of a business model. The local Starbucks is regularly offering free samples, broadcast television is free to watch etc. This does mean that you are giving something away in order to add value to something else, or convince people to value something else which you do then sell.

This is where open-source has been profitable: sure the source code is free, but support costs money. I'm sure there are other ways and business models that will be invented, as an example Kickstarter which is really the opposite of give-it-away-away-and-pray: get funding commitments before you start work.

There's also a documentary coming up about gene patents, as corporations already seem to own 20% of the human genes. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1305236092/your-genes-have-been-patented-a-feature-documentar

Sorry, you only get goodies if and when the project is funded and your credit card is successfully charged:

How do I make a pledge?
First, enter your pledge amount and select a reward. On the next page we'll ask you to log in or sign up with Kickstarter, and then we'll send you to Amazon Payments to complete your pledge with a major credit card.

When is my credit card charged?
If this project is fully funded on June 01, 11:59pm EDT your credit card will be charged along with all the other backers of this project.

So my card is only charged if funding succeeds?
Yes! That's part of what makes Kickstarter special. If a project isn't fully funded, no one pays anything.

If this project is funded, how do I get my reward?
When your reward is ready, Maxwell Salzberg will contact you by email to request any info they'll need to deliver your reward (mailing address, t-shirt size, etc).

Or kickstarter staff, because they get 5% so it's in their best interest to keep their cash cow Diaspora golden.

But all is not well in the Kickstarter camp as you can see from the Kickstarter Sucks page: "Thanks for taking the time to share your idea. We look for projects that have a well-developed, creative focus. We wish you the best of luck, but this isn’t right for Kickstarter. Thanks again for writing and good luck!

Best,
Cindy"

whole story available here. I understand their need to be selective, but I don't see Diaspora to be any more developed or creative than that site.

If you pledge $1000 or more you can get access to the code while its in development all summer http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr?pos=4&ref=spotlight/

You're correct. I understand the geek nature of the idea, and how any out-of-field implementation looks great. The problem is that music notation is badly understood even by those programming it, and even more badly programmed because programming begets programming -- in other words, just as there are many who think MP3s sound better than full-range high-resolution version, there are many who think amateur music notation looks just fine. They've gotten used to it, and don't actually look at fine metal plate engraving when designing the software. Were the same lack of understanding and poor implementation (even as a demo) brought to an accounting program or photo editor or even a book on Linux, it would be committed to the great hells of derision and disdain.

Dennis

Pleae back my opera on Kickstarter

As a music copyist for 40+ years, I'd say this may be a cool concept but has dreadful results. There have been hundreds of programs that produced amateur results like this since the early 1980s, and most of them couldn't (and still can't) do basic contemporary notation. That's why ABC notation is also pretty useless. If it can come close to doing this with good character balance and incorporation of graphical elements -- most of which Finale could do 15 years ago and Score could do long before that -- then it's a start.

I love new implementations, but as any professional in any field knows, ultimately it's what you implement that matters.

Dennis

Please back my project! at Kickstarter.

Here's another idea:

1) some bunch of technically skilled people with a lot of spare time put together a proposal for a linux based tablet system
2) those people ask for funding (for example on http://www.kickstarter.com/
3) slashdot crowd starts donating money
4) people start developing the device
5) profit!

Hmmm .... its distributed social network software and its aGPL. That means any user who tinkers with the source is in the mandatory-software-distribution business to his social network (hopefully, this does not mean anyone who sends in a friend request.)

I'm no Facebook shill, and would like something like OpenSocial or Diaspora let us take charge of our own data, but... I'd prefer Diaspora was MIT or BSD or even GPLv2 licensed. Guys: I hope you dual-license it.

"We promise to you that Diaspora will be aGPL software which will released at the end of the summer."
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr

2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program....[provided]
* d) If the Program as you received it is intended to interact with users through a computer network and if, in the version you received, any user interacting with the Program was given the opportunity to request transmission to that user of the Program's complete source code, you must not remove that facility from your modified version of the Program or work based on the Program, and must offer an equivalent opportunity for all users interacting with your Program through a computer network to request immediate transmission by HTTP of the complete source code of your modified version or other derivative work.
http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html

And that person/people SHOULD be paid for the insane amount of work required to prepare even the basic latin alphabet in all these variations, let alone implementing decent unicode support...

Fair enough, but should they be paid every time the font is used? I think once should be enough. If you have a font to sell me, feel free to put it up at http://www.kickstarter.com/ and send me a message.

I WILL pay. Just not over and over for eternity.

One control-freak company wants to sell cheaper books, while another control-freak company wants to sell more expensive books?
I know which weevil/weasel I will go with.

and while this is just one side of the argument, but anyone who thinks Apple's deal with the publishers will work out better for the authors should read this:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/07/its-nsfw-because-the-word-fuck-is-in-the-url/

I'm waiting for Apple to take things to their logical conclusion and allow authors direct access to the market. They've already done this for programmers with the app-store and there are a few (too few) self published artists on the iTunes store. Now they need to do the same for video and books. The tools have become so powerful and cheap that talent can self-finance or crowd-fund through sites like Kickstarter and the bottleneck left now is in the publisher/distributer cartels.

You could do that with Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/