Hello all !
A few years ago I suggested to manage Pegasus Mail and Mercury through a foundation. This model is widely used for some other softwares so I see no reason why it could not be for David Harris' products. So the idea is to create a foundation that will manage, develop and maintain versions of Pegasus Mail and Mercury. This way, even when David will "leave", his products will remain. That is a sad aspect of things but it is part of being human. Humans come and go, but softwares not necessarily do so.
To launch the foundation, a fund raising could be set with eventually a more or less detailed itemization of expenses. The amount of needed money could be represented by some sort of status bar directly on the official web site and the wikipédia page. By the way the Wikipédia foundation operates along similar lines. As for new features, the plans suggested above are not very efficient. Indeed, assume David spends a lot of time coding and testing and as a result offers a new version which has to be bought. Now suppose no one buys it, then David would have "wasted" his time and energy, and on top of that would have earned no money for his work. I think a more effeicient way to integrate new features would be to first standardized the process of selecting new features. One way to do it would in seven steps :
(.) step 01 : define a period of time during which every user can suggest a new feature (to ease forum research, a subforum should be created and strict rules regarding titles of threads and presentation of features should be designed) ;
(.) step 02 : thanks to the presentation rules of thread titles and thread bodies (features presentation and rationales) we assume a somehow automated process studies all the relevant threads and comes up with a list of a given number of features ;
(.) step 03 : define a period of time during which every user will be able to vote for one of the features ;
(.) step 04 : show on the official web site (and maybe the wikipedia page) which are the top 5 features (the number of features is decided by David so 5 is just to illustrate my point) and represent each with some sort of money bar ;
(.) step 05 : once a money bar of a particular feature is full, then a development bar takes place with an estimated time of coding completion ;
(.) step 06 : once the development bar is full, it is replaced by a tested bar ;
(.) step 07 : once all tested bars are full for all top 5 selected features, then a ew version of Pegasus Mail could be set into development.
This way, the selection and coding of the features is efficient, David earns some money for his work and everyone can enjoy a free version of Pegasus Mail. In my opinion, it is a win for everyone. Also, a permanent donation bar could be visible on the web site and the wikipedia page. This way, David will only need to modify the "donation goal" in order to ask for more money. The dude being rather uncomfortable about that matter, this could be a way for him to overcome this difficulty.
I have to say that I already suggested those ideas to David but so far did not receive any answer. Those ideas could be taken into account in designing a crowdfunding project. As an example, this has been successfull for the following project : Eternity. It is an isometric RPG which raised $3,986,929. That said, there is only one way to know if this could be also a success for Pegasus Mail and Mercury : try it ! I hope those suggestions will be found interesting by the community and by David.
Sheers !
Whiskyfizz.
<p>Hello all !</p><p>A few years ago I suggested to manage Pegasus Mail and Mercury through a foundation. This model is widely used for some other softwares so I see no reason why it could not be for David Harris' products. So the idea is to create a foundation that will manage, develop and maintain versions of Pegasus Mail and Mercury. This way, even when David will "leave", his products will remain. That is a sad aspect of things but it is part of being human. Humans come and go, but softwares not necessarily do so.</p><p>To launch the foundation, a fund raising could be set with eventually a more or less detailed itemization of expenses. The amount of needed money could be represented by some sort of status bar directly on the official web site and the wikipédia page. By the way the Wikipédia foundation operates along similar lines. As for new features, the plans suggested above are not very efficient. Indeed, assume David spends a lot of time coding and testing and as a result offers a new version which has to be bought. Now suppose no one buys it, then David would have "wasted" his time and energy, and on top of that would have earned no money for his work. I think a more effeicient way to integrate new features would be to first standardized the process of selecting new features. One way to do it would in seven steps :</p><p>(.) step 01 : define a period of time during which every user can suggest a new feature (to ease forum research, a subforum should be created and strict rules regarding titles of threads and presentation of features should be designed) ;</p><p>(.) step 02 : thanks to the presentation rules of thread titles and thread bodies (features presentation and rationales) we assume a somehow automated process studies all the relevant threads and comes up with a list of a given number of features ;</p><p>(.) step 03 : define a period of time during which every user will be able to vote for one of the features ;</p><p>(.) step 04 : show on the official web site (and maybe the wikipedia page) which are the top 5 features (the number of features is decided by David so 5 is just to illustrate my point) and represent each with some sort of money bar ;</p><p>(.) step 05 : once a money bar of a particular feature is full, then a development bar takes place with an estimated time of coding completion ;</p><p>(.) step 06 : once the development bar is full, it is replaced by a tested bar ;</p><p>(.) step 07 : once all tested bars are full for all top 5 selected features, then a ew version of Pegasus Mail could be set into development.</p><p>This way, the selection and coding of the features is efficient, David earns some money for his work and everyone can enjoy a free version of Pegasus Mail. In my opinion, it is a win for everyone. Also, a permanent donation bar could be visible on the web site and the wikipedia page. This way, David will only need to modify the "donation goal" in order to ask for more money. The dude being rather uncomfortable about that matter, this could be a way for him to overcome this difficulty.</p><p>I have to say that I already suggested those ideas to David but so far did not receive any answer. Those ideas could be taken into account in designing a crowdfunding project. As an example, this has been successfull for the following project : Eternity. It is an isometric RPG which raised $3,986,929. That said, there is only one way to know if this could be also a success for Pegasus Mail and Mercury : try it ! I hope those suggestions will be found interesting by the community and by David. </p><p>Sheers !</p><p>Whiskyfizz.
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