Donation Site and paying developers

Posted on
Wed Mar 06, 2013 10:50 am
thedon offline
Posts: 246
Joined: Apr 01, 2011

Donation Site and paying developers

Hello All,

I have a idea.......
I really enjoy using Indigo and expanding it's function. I would say %40 of this is due to user contributed plugins (Cynical Cache) being one of the biggies that I rely on.
Which makes me come to this idea, I sometimes have ideas for plugins, or hardware I wish there was a plugin for.
So, I know that some of these plugs are a labor of love from the people who can develop and need these plugs for themselves.
My idea is, a site (that I am willing to host) for a kinda of donation set up for plugin development based off interest (almost like crowd sourced).
May work like this:
I would like a plugin for my onkyo receiver, I post that request ( maybe in these forums) once a hand full of people share their interest of it a developer post a cost associated with it, say for the sake of math it's $100 then a contribution of $5 is required per person for development.
Another way is:
A developer could have a idea for a plugin and post on the forum with a cost of development, then we can raise money to accommodate if the interest is there.

I thought this up as I would pay money for some plugins ideas to be developed, and some devs have already done some work, maybe updates could be included in this feature? Or even expanded features.
The plugin for the vera is no longer supported, this may attract development through some funds..

I would like to mention I have NO goal of skimming or profiting from this, it's purely to expand the use of indigo by pulling money together for mutual benefit.
I would assume that the plugins would be free as well after development, who wants to get into all that protection stuff :)

So what do you guys and gals think? Worth pursuing? I would of course like to know what the guys at perceptive think of it? No toe stepping intended here if I am.

Thanks

Posted on
Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:51 am
durosity offline
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Joined: May 10, 2012
Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne, Ye Ol' England.

Re: Donation Site and paying developers

Sounds like a great idea.. there’s at least 3 or 4 plugin ideas that i’d pay towards if there was enough demand :D (For example i’d love to see a new iTunes plugin that could also control and read information from the AppleTV.. and one for my Sky HD satellite box)

Computer says no.

Posted on
Wed Mar 06, 2013 5:31 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Donation Site and paying developers

I think this is a good idea. We definitely don't have a problem with it. If you create a site it'll need to be clear it isn't our site, but other than that we have no issues with it.

I would recommend probably just keeping it informal at this point on the forum (to judge interest before creating a site). So maybe standardize on how the subject line should be formatted for each plugin bounty. Something like:

Plugin Wanted Bounty ($$): Onkyo Receiver Model XYZ

Then in the post explain what you are looking for specifically and how much you are willing to pledge. Others can jump in with their pledge amounts and developers can chime in with how much it would take to get them interested. Then you can see where it goes from there. We'd consider making a forum sub-section for the bounty posts if there is enough interest.

Thanks for sharing the idea.

Image

Posted on
Wed Mar 06, 2013 9:34 pm
thedon offline
Posts: 246
Joined: Apr 01, 2011

Re: Donation Site and paying developers

YES! I think that's a great idea.
I wonder what's the best way to get the word out of the idea to start the interest judging.....?
I guess I have to come up with a idea ha ha.

Posted on
Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:43 pm
DU Lou offline
Posts: 279
Joined: Mar 08, 2012
Location: Florida

Re: Donation Site and paying developers

I have backed a few Kickstarter projects and just last week I was thinking 'Hey wouldn't it be neat if the Indigo Developer community had a similar venue for plugin development"

In fact I recently backed "Ube's WiFi Connected Multi-touch Smart Light Dimmer" and I thought to myself 'Great, if this project is funded and I get a few of these devices, how the heck do I get them to talk to Indigo and vice versa??' I know it may be difficult to develop without the hardware in hand so I figured I would see if anyone would be interested creating a plugin if I gifted some devices to the cause. But I also understand that cash is king :D

In any case, +1 for me!
~Lou

Posted on
Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:54 pm
thedon offline
Posts: 246
Joined: Apr 01, 2011

Re: Donation Site and paying developers

I heard about that device, kinda of neat but the idea to integrate is exactly what I was talking about when I thought of this idea.
On a side not, I wonder why WiFi isn't preferred for automation? My house is saturated in it.

Posted on
Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:08 pm
jay (support) offline
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Location: Austin, Texas

Re: Donation Site and paying developers

Adding devices that have no UI to an existing WiFi network is a huge pain in the butt. Since you have to provide a password to join most networks and appliance like devices have no UI, you have to figure out some convoluted/tricky way to do that. There are several different approaches but none of which, IMO, are reasonable.

What I'm hoping is that some of the standards groups are working on some new protocol/process to do exactly this. As more and more devices become network-aware the problems are only going to get worse.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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