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| Would you be interested in a "Gentoo Members Club"? |
| Call me a member already |
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36% |
[ 7 ] |
| This is too business-like; don't make Gentoo a business |
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52% |
[ 10 ] |
| I like the concept, but... [post details below] |
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10% |
[ 2 ] |
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| Total Votes : 19 |
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charlieg
Advocate
Joined: 30 Jul 2002
Posts: 2149
Location: Manchester UK
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 Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:16 am Post subject: A Gentoo Members Club? |
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Gentoo could have a membership which gives you access to high availability servers 24/7 and a finite amount of bandwith according to your membership level.
Token Membership for $10 a year:- 10% discount on all things gentoo (CDs, T-Shirts, Mugs, etc)
- email of username@members.gentoo.org (POP/IMAP/Web access)
Home-user Membership for $20 a year:- Token membership benefits plus...
- 1gig/month access to high availability gentoo.org portage servers
Home-user extra Membership for $50 a year:- 25% discount on all things gentoo
- email address of username@gentoo.org
- 10 ERCs* per year
- 5gig/month access to high availability gentoo.org portage servers
- 5gig/month access to gentoo compilation farm (compile your apps remotely with requested cflags/use flags)
Business Membership for $50 a year:- 25% discount on all things gentoo
- up to 3 email addresses of username@members.gentoo.org (POP/IMAP/Web access)
- 10gig/month access to high availability gentoo.org portage servers
- 10 ERCs* per year
Corporate Membership for $100 a year:- 25% discount on all things gentoo
- 1 email address of username@gentoo.org
- up to 10 email addresses of username@members.gentoo.org or username.businessname@gentoo.org
- 20gig/month access to high availability gentoo.org portage servers
- 20gig/month access to gentoo compilation farm
- 20 ERCs* per year
Elite Membership for $500 a year:
* ERC - Ebuild Request Credit; request an ebuild that will be delivered by a developer within 24 hours of request
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Matje
l33t
Joined: 29 Oct 2002
Posts: 619
Location: Hasselt, Belgium
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| Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:26 am Post subject: |
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I don't think you'll actually be able to pay a developer to create 20 ERC's for just 100 bucks 
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charlieg
Advocate
Joined: 30 Jul 2002
Posts: 2149
Location: Manchester UK
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| Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:49 am Post subject: Think about it |
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| Matje wrote: | | I don't think you'll actually be able to pay a developer to create 20 ERC's for just 100 bucks |
Well, think about it. The majority of ebuilds will get done regardless. This just gives companies / individuals a safeguard for getting ebuilds into portage that wouldn't normally be done by the devs.
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drakonite
l33t
Joined: 02 Nov 2002
Posts: 768
Location: Lincoln, NE
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| Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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Hmmm... This reminds me of mandrake for some reason 
I think it would end up costing a lot more to set up and maintain a multi-tier system then it would benifit in profits. To me it makes a lot more sense to have one, maybe two levels at the most.
I've kept thinking about it and I just can't think of a good way to set up a Gentoo club. Unfortunatly it seems the only viable solution to make money is through donations and merchandise. Personally, if my paypal account (or my real bank account for that matter...) had any money in it I'd donate a few bucks. Not much but if everyone donated a little it would add up to a lot.
Hmm... Maybe gentoo should do some product placement?
*pictures ascii text ads for moutain dew*
*shudder*
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psharp
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 16 Sep 2002
Posts: 76
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:59 pm Post subject: Re: Think about it |
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| charlieg wrote: | | Matje wrote: | | I don't think you'll actually be able to pay a developer to create 20 ERC's for just 100 bucks |
Well, think about it. The majority of ebuilds will get done regardless. This just gives companies / individuals a safeguard for getting ebuilds into portage that wouldn't normally be done by the devs. |
The major problem with this is the variability of ebuilds - compare Open Office or Mozilla with some of the simpler ones. I don't see how anyone could guarentee a working ebuild of any package within 24 hours. Also it means that developers may end up working on specific packages rather than popular ones - imagine if the kde ebuilds were delayed because the dev.s were working on Mr Mega-buck's pet project which noone else was interested in. If you want the ability for preferential treatment due to better paying power there are plenty of places where you can recieve it, personally I wouldn't want to see Gentoo go that way.
Generally I don't like the idea of a club (it has been mentioned before)except perhaps as paying for high-speed server access as it does benefit everyone (reduced load on the free servers).
Someone offered email at some gentooish email address previously in return for a donation to gentoo and I recall that there wasn't a high take-up, esp. compared to the costs of providing storage (as opposed to forwarding). For the other options I think that hardware costs are not guarenteed to be covered by membership, and even if they are I'm not sure of the effectiveness of it as a income generating tool.
Sorry to sound negative, but I don't see how this can work as a way of funding Gentoo and other motives (ie better service for more cash even if it doesn't benefit the project as a whole) don't seam to fit in with the Gentoo Community philosophy. |
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idl
Retired Dev
Joined: 24 Dec 2002
Posts: 1728
Location: Nottingham, UK
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| Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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| IMO these forums are the perfect member area, we dont need anything else. |
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masseya
Bodhisattva
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
Posts: 2602
Location: Baltimore, MD
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| Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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I think one of the major things that makes Gentoo attractive is the social contract which basically says that they want to use and support free software without depending on anything else. While the club that you are proposing isn't a violation of this, it seems like it would be moving into a gray area of preferring some class of people (in this case, those with money who donate) over others to the point that it affects software support. I personally wouldn't mind too horribly if this was a true fan club and not a direct part of the Gentoo organization. This would require that things like custom ebuilds from developers to not be possible. Of course that would also limit the possible benefits of being in the club. However, I don't know if it would eliminate the feasibility of the club. You could still donate club funds to Gentoo and use the rest for services that would make the club worthwhile. The thought of a nice gentoo email address appears to have some attraction to some people. Another interesting possibility is a dedicated rsync server that might provide some authentication to where only users would be able to use it. This would require some technical setup though, and that's where these things get dicy and start to fail. It's certainly an intereseting idea. Of course these are simply my opinions.
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pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
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| Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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Gentoo Club
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