Hmmm, might just be me but I don't like it. Obviously, it's not that I don't think the devs wouldn't deserve it or anything. It just feels like something that goes against the spirit of open source.
As soon as money comes into play, things always turn to shit in one way or another.
Does Indiegogo even allow you to raise funds for someone else without their permission? That sounds kinda dubious.
A better idea would be to use those funds to buy hardware that's needed for testing / development and donate it to the Dolphin project. It's in the spirit of Open Source and will help to make Dolphin even better (more compatible and more accurate).
(11-11-2014, 04:04 AM)kirbypuff Wrote: [ -> ]A better idea would be to use those funds to buy hardware that's needed for testing / development and donate it to the Dolphin project. It's in the spirit of Open Source and will help to make Dolphin even better (more compatible and more accurate).
An even better idea is to let such initiatives to the devs themselves if they wish. Why?
1st. It is annoying to have others speak for you without you.
2nd. It is even more annoying for others to be asking for money for you without you.
3rd. When any irrelevant person gathers money there is no guaranty that they will end up in the proper person. I could also start a campaign for a good cause, grab all the money i gather and spend them.
Put all those reasons together and you can see why such initiatives are bad. Personally i am glad that noone made a contribution till now.
Also, Dolphin team have some money. Sometime ago they even did a bug bounty for the
92 minute audio bug. In case of zfreeze, I think it's something very hard to implement or something not possible in the hardware backends yet (seems that zfreeze works fine in SW renderer). However, I'm not a developer nor I understand how video emulation code work at all, everything I said about zfreeze maybe incorrect or wrong...
I anticipated that some of these concerns would come up, so here are my thoughts.. Specific ones first, then more generally..
When I started this thread, I asked for ideas of how money might be used with the aim of fixing zfreeze. The convo lead me to believe that this was a "time is money" issue for one particular person. This is familiar to me, for although I want to contribute my time directly to Dolphin, I can't make it a priority in my life. I pictured others feeling the same way as me, so I thought an online fundraiser would be a good second-best option.
I worded the campaign site so that anyone can claim the reward, and someone else could even use Galop1n's code as a starting point. I was also careful not to use the Dolphin logo. A healthy skepticism is warranted for any kind of online fundraiser, so I included my Google+ profile in my Point of Contact link. It may not meet the bar of skepticism for some people, but take it as a sign of good faith.
More generally.. to me, the most important thing isn't whether the Indie Gogo campaign meets its goal or not. It's that we are discussing different ways to solve a long-standing issue-- and I am so amped to play Rogue Leader, I couldn't sit around & do nothing. If 60 days go by and zfreeze is still an active issue, perhaps this will plant the seeds for another idea that does knock that bug off the list. But I think this is a worthy idea, and worth presenting directly to Galop1n in case he doesn't follow these forums anymore.
(11-11-2014, 11:29 AM)BlizzardToaBreeze Wrote: [ -> ]I anticipated that some of these concerns would come up, so here are my thoughts.. Specific ones first, then more generally..
When I started this thread, I asked for ideas of how money might be used with the aim of fixing zfreeze. The convo lead me to believe that this was a "time is money" issue for one particular person. This is familiar to me, for although I want to contribute my time directly to Dolphin, I can't make it a priority in my life. I pictured others feeling the same way as me, so I thought an online fundraiser would be a good second-best option.
I worded the campaign site so that anyone can claim the reward, and it could even be claimed by the person who integrates Galop1n's code into the main branch. I was also careful not to use the Dolphin logo. A healthy skepticism is warranted for any kind of online fundraiser, so I included my Google+ profile in my Point of Contact link. It may not meet the bar of skepticism for some people, but take it as a sign of good faith.
More generally.. to me, the most important thing isn't whether the Indie Gogo campaign meets its goal or not. It's that we are discussing different ways to solve a long-standing issue-- and I am so amped to play Rogue Leader, I couldn't sit around & do nothing. If 60 days go by and zfreeze is still an active issue, perhaps this will plant the seeds for another idea that does knock that bug off the list. But I think this is a worthy idea, and worth presenting directly to Galop1n in case he doesn't follow these forums anymore.
Even if you have all the good intentions and my 3rd point above is moot the other two points still stand, and that is simply because you didn't have patience talking to the man himself first. He might have a good job and money not be his problem, but real life issues and lack of time. Or even he might not be able to solve it. Now imagine someone barging in and saying, hey look i have all this money gathered up from all this people now go on and find a solution to this problem to not disappoint them. Do you know how rude is that in that case? It is like you make a psychological blackmail to the guy in case money were never his issue in the first place.
I truly don't think that what you said describes this approach, but if you think you have an ideal way of approaching someone specifically about solving zfreeze, please PM me & we can get on the same page. In a low-pressure manner, I intend to use the Indie Gogo page as a sign that I personally am serious about following thru with the intention of "perhaps someone (anyone) is willing to trade their expertise & time for some money to fix zfreeze."
Marked Unofficial, unless the Dolphin Team/Devs want to endorse or sponsor this. Don't take it personally as a negative sign (my opinion is neutral in this case), it's just part of my job.
As Jhonn pointed out, paid bug bounties actually do happen in OSS (whether it is common or not is something I cannot comment on), but even if the money is gathered, keep in mind that does not mean the issue will get fixed anytime soon. As others have described above, there are some pretty technical constraints on any solution to the z-freeze issue. Who knows though, maybe just knowing people care about the issue may lead to someone finding a breakthrough.