About 'fund-your-app'

Why is it that I can’t send suggestion to apps before I have to vote - I’d rather not add bogus votes. Seems it’s not even possible to not vote - selection is mandatory.
After how it’s been talked recently, it’s odd that Thunderbird is missing from message apps (I’d vote it).

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Totally agree! I am disillusioned by this Purism way of funding base component we (or most of us) have already paid for.

You think it is cool to pay extra money to vote for a calendar? A CALENDAR???
I paid for this almost 2 years ago!
What’s next?

And why do I have to pay extra and do not get a ‘voucher’ for voting, since I already bought the device? Are they running short on money?

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as always empowering people to vote with their dollar will ensure that the most well funded apps get a premium treatment (or at least that’s what they say).

because throwing more cash at a ‘problem’ is guaranteed to make more ‘problems’ pop up this is an imperfect way to reach a goal …

i would rather Purism differentiate between what was already promised to work out of the box WELL and the other ‘fund-your-apps’ … this is to say “we still want you to keep your word Purism” even though we now have an easier way to crowd-fund ‘apps’ …

another point though ! any buck you want to invest in this is only possible through credit-card (treated as a subscription - that’s why i don’t like it !)

I would like a short description of each app (or a popup box with a description) and a link where I can find out more info. I don’t know what 30% of the apps in the list do. For example, I know that I need good email, but if I didn’t know what was Geary, I wouldn’t know to vote for it.

Hardware acceleration is not as easy as you think. Purism got it to work for Epiphany and it already works for Chromium. If we don’t want to wait for GTK 4 to be released, then it probably will take quite a bit of work to get it to work, because GTK 3 doesn’t include it.

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Its ironic to me that so many people in a freedom-minded forum are asking for guidance in them voting for apps/features they want to be worked on first.

Like something? Drop $20 on it. Can’t afford $20? Drop $10. Don’t know what something is? Search for it on DDG. Don’t want to spend any money voting? Then don’t.

Its just a monetized poll. If money is so tight that this is giving you pause, perhaps you shouldn’t “gamble” it here in the first place.

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Purism just posted a developer position. https://puri.sm/job/pureos-gtk-application-development/

Edit - changed guess to quote from Todd off matrix

Funds are donated, the list is prioritized based on votes (not dollars), the list gets worked on in the order of priority until fully satisfied. So it is only a question of when the application will get released not if it will. Purism continues to fund app development as part of its business model and will continue to do so even if one app got $5 in donation and one vote. Additionally community development will also be funded or assisted in funding by Purism, since the more applications the run on the Librem 5 the better for all.<

Also they got a lot of people involved. https://social.librem.one/@purism/105006040487958418
We’ll need to divide that by the number of votes each ballot can cast.

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Thank you, I understand you point of view, but to me, it should be in the form of a donation. What I see in those funds is like an auction.

Even if the priority is based on the number of votes as @dean said before, you have to pay to vote (so there is not exactly but “kind of discrimination”) : someone in 2020 doesn’t have enough money anymore because something difficult happens to him (lose job or twin babies, or something else), but has already paid for the Librem 5 in the past, unfortunately it is impossible to vote for him.

Just for clarification, I remind that what bothers me is to integrate phone functionalities into these funds. Regarding the apps, I am less concerned by Purism’s proposal because I understand this is difficult to develop and maintain Android/iOS apps for Linux OS.

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“Reddit” is listed but no third-party apps are. I, personally, strongly prefer RedReader to the official app. Actually, I prefer pretty much any alternative Reddit client to the official app. From what I’ve seen from others, the Reddit app is absolutely horrible. The mobile website is also pretty bad.

I’m also much more interested in Waterfox or Palemoon than Firefox. Firefox started going downhill years ago.

One app I’d love to see is something like Hacker’s Keyboard, or at least its 5-row layout on the current keyboard. The current keyboard looks pretty badly limited, but the full 5-row layout of Hacker’s Keyboard is amazing. It makes using the terminal not unpleasant on mobile (enough that I use it quite often) and makes writing easy. I have written incredibly long comments with this keyboard and even taken notes when I didn’t have time to plug in my larger keyboard. I have also written this comment with Hacker’s Keyboard too, again in the full 5-row layout on portrait.

Silence/SMSSecure was also ignored, but to be fair it seems fairly obscure based on what I’ve seen on these forums.

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There an issue about that in the Chats git:

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty/-/issues/95

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So I can donate $1 and have as much impact on the voting as someone that donates $100?

Maybe you can pay 100 times 1$ :sweat_smile:

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It’s not bad a bad idea to show interest by the donors for certain apps,however; there should be certain apps that should be there without question. I mean, think in all the people around the world that uses WhatsApp, Netflix or Uber. I could say Crunchyroll . . hahaha, that would be only me. Those 3 apps are like the reason of why people use a smartphone in the first place. In contrast with Google Maps and YouTube , guys, seriously Puremaps and some videoapp should resolve that, like, hire the guy from newpipe android app. Newpipe is amazing, and if you offer an alternative to google and apple . . . what’s the deal of having google apps? Like seriously.

I would think that calendar app, email app, graphics acceleration and battery . . . that should by default in the phone, don’t you think? Just think in the cheapeast android phone and how optimized they are. I have seen one by $99 bucks.

So, developer guys, I know is kind of expensive costly having a privacy based phone, but think in what is happening. Oracle and Google are fighting for the java APIs . . if Oracle wins and take out the java out of android phones. And you offer certain apps that everybody uses in their daily basis, don’t you think that average Joe users wouldn’t consider the Librem 5 as an option? Do you think that the market of SailfishOS would be possible if they didn’t provide a working android WhatsApp? Who knows!

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Well, um, no. Everyone is different, right?

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Mmm… . yeah, I’m wrong about that. It should be “Most of the people I know”, that should be better.

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Maybe the wrong place to write, but I have a suggestion. I think it would be helpful if it said how many votes each app/feature has already. Then you can see how close one is to being in the top 5.

Overall I thought this was a good idea but I think I would prefer a different approach to it. I would have the vote not involving money (maybe prioritising Librem 5 customers, or only Librem 5 customers?), with clear goals for each app/feature. Then a (or several) crowd funding campaign/s can be started with the winning apps/features. People who want them can then donate what they feel is appropriate for those particular apps/features. Maybe also it could be repeated at regular intervals.

Did I write app/feature enough times? :crazy_face:

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It sounds like you want a poll to see which apps/features should be donated to, and then, separately, start a funding campaign for whichever one(s) win(s) the poll. I don’t see how that’s better (or even different) than doing both at the same time.

One of the problems with the current setup is that funds/votes could be spread too thinly i.e. no individual app gets enough funds/votes to make any substantial difference to that app and/or a lot of people pay money for one or more specific apps and get nothing in return (at least not in a reasonable time horizon).

Another point to bring out from that post is the “clear goals”. Even if you pay money for an app that gets enough money to make a difference, you don’t really know what you are getting - significant known and specified bugs being fixed? useful specified new functionality being added? pointless (to you) feature bloat?

I think I am right in saying that the best way of interpreting the current FYA is … you are making an untied charitable donation to Purism and in return you get the right to contribute towards nudging Purism in particular directions as far as app priorities go.

If you are comfortable with that model then that’s fine. Other people may prefer something more concrete.

I think the downside of the clear goals and crowdfunding approach is that Purism would have to have a pretty solid idea of how much work is involved to bring the specific app to that specific endpoint, and hence how many dollars need to be raised.

Software estimation is difficult. Sometimes a thing actually isn’t as hard as you thought it was going to be. Sometimes you find that you opened up a can of worms. Sometimes even getting to the point of a reliable estimate itself has significant cost.

Anyway, it goes right back to the question I raised above: If I put $X towards app Y, and absolutely noone else puts anything towards app Y, and app Y is (reasonably therefore) never delivered, what happens to my $X?

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There is no indication that this is the case. The way the website reads, you choose what you want them to work on next, and then you donate money. They say they’ll prioritize whatever gets “the most support,” but that could be either number of dollars or number of votes.

If you say “use of the word ‘support’ implies dollars” then I’ll say “use of the word ‘prioritizes’ implies all will get worked on” and thus you needn’t worry your pretty head. If you think “support” means “votes,” I still say “prioritizes” means “everything will get worked on.”

I think the attitude that anyone is “buying” anything is wrong. It’s a donation with an opinion, at most a request, attached, nothing more.

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See the third paragraph in my previous post. I think we are in agreement on that. However so far noone from Purism has dropped in to explain how it’s going to work or answer any of the questions that have been raised. So you and I, and everyone else, are just speculating on how we interpret it.

Given that it was a question? … but let’s say you are disagreeing with the premise of the question.

I would be surprised if every single app on the FYA page eventually gets delivered. There’s some obscure and/or proprietary stuff, some of which may even actively discourage use on an open platform.

The third paragraph of your post is at odds with the question at the end of your post. I was addressing the “most recent” train of thought, particularly because you did say “it all comes back to this question.”

And yes, I suppose I disagree with the premise of the question, or rather the context inferred thereof. I would be more surprised if the list Purism maintains includes items for which they do not intend to develop, particularly since donations are involved. I would find it very underhanded if, for example, lots of donations came in attached to Telegram, but there is never any intent to port Telegram to the L5