QT5 simplebrowser

[Guillaume Gay]

Bonjour to all,

I get were you are coming from.
One idea I have is the donate page on os2voice.org should be more clear. Right now if you go to the the homepage and click the sponsorship tab I don't see anything about donating to the browser or BWW.
Unless I am blind .
I did find it on one of your posts here:
http://articles.os2voice.org/category/software/24-new-web-browser-for-os-2-is-with-reach.html
But why not make it more prominent and include it in the main navigation?

About the donation part of this thread.

This clearly reminds every of the need of a good marketing plan for a fundraising for any project. Marketing is surely a job by itself, and (un?)fortunately not mine.

Two other places may be mentioned for donations:
https://www.arcanoae.com/product-category/support-sponsoring/
https://www.bitwiseworks.com/shop/index.php?id_category=11&controller=category&id_lang=1

Notes :

• The later web site being based in EU, it might be more appealing for a customer who lives this part of the world.
• The "sponsoring units" are differently labelled on both sites  - It looks clearer on AracaNoae's online shop to me. But you will find Qt5 sponsoring units which is the base for any Qt5 programs like a browser.
• A $55 donation should cost 50€ (via PayPal) to a EU resident using Arca Noae online shop. Of course, these donations do not benefit from the same tax advantages as those made for public interest organizations in some countries, and I don't know the amount of taxes applied in fine, but if you consider the number of fine softwares you get for that price and the amazing developers you support, that's a bargain. 

We must all accept the we all have to live (survive for some), and that we must take care of ourselves in priority. We must find the right balance.

So, take care you all!
--
Guillaume Gay

[Per E. Johannessen]

To me it is quite obvious that Roderick is spending a lot of time trying to make people
donate to BWW. Thanks to his reminders I have donated a few times and will do so again today.

While there are various comments in this thread I do not agree with, it does in no way stop me from
continuing to donate. Hopefully others in a position to donate see it this way too.

[Neil Waldhauer]

I agree with Mr Gay. This is a marketing problem.

I donate a portion of Blonde Guy profits to BitWise every time I sell a computer. An enormous number of people in the world do not buy a Blonde Guy computer. I do not disparage or insult them. Instead, I try harder to make a computer that they want. I thank my customers for buying a computer.

Before I worked at Blonde Guy, I worked at a computer company run by engineers. We had a lovely software library we sold for $7500. We struggled to make money. But we hired a marketing person. He sold one copy of our software. For $2,500,000. I learned an important lesson on the role of engineering and of marketing in business.

If I could make one concrete suggestion, it would be to sell space on the About... page. Donors can be named for a fee.

[Jan-Erik Lärka]

It's great to read and hear such positive news that there's a new browser on the way.

Several of the sites that host OS/2-ArcaOS projects and products seem sparse at communicating where to do what. Why not suggest improvements politely, perhaps in a separate thread?

Use the software as soon as it's purchased, otherwise it will be obsolete or not function as the world around evolve in one or the other direction. Better to learn new things in small steps now, than to have to relearn all together when *** has redefined how to do this or that. Some things may otherwise become such big hurdles to overcome.

So positive information has only reached so far, news-letters and the like may be technical and not build the insight that component/library/application X is vital in this sense (bla, bla, bla) as part of XYZ that in turn give the base to run on current/now only available/modern hardware.

The technological leaps ahead to close some of the gaps that has to be performed mean more overhauls of parts of the OS. Is it the need to see that that specific update/fix/improvement suit each individuals need, so he/she is only interested in that part? Then we'd end up with a box full of holes, as several things depend on each other. Arca Noae/OS2Voice/BitWiseWorks focus on those parts that we may take for granted. All that do cost and you and I are the ones to ensure those updates gets developed. I need to buy a new computer as the old one is... well, old and start to fail (hdd latest). I think I should buy one, try it out and report my findings to an/bww.

To do all that I need a new browser that can access my internet bank, online computer store etc. so I sponsor to get the updates.

Surely there must be more ways to attract attention.
Easier ways to sponsor is a goog start, a marketing person another.

//Jan-Erik

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

I also agree that there is some marketing/sales problem here. And it is great that we turn the discussion into possible solutions.

From what I see on a software company the important thing is having a repetitive income so you have have the money resources. I found that Patreon may be a good platform for repetitive income for people/companies that make open source software.

Bitwiseworks currently have 22 patreons that give them $198 monthly. That is not enough to pay a developer, and not enough to tip a developer to have him/her interested. https://www.patreon.com/bwwbitwiseworks.  What it can be good is to try to raise that sum to at least $1000 at month. It will require 100 users giving $10 per month to Bitwise works. But it can be interesting for Bitwise works to also offer something to their patreons like access to download Bitwise binaries like openoffice and future update of the browser.

This is just an early idea and it will depend more on Bitwise if they want to promote patreon income in that way.

Regards

[Roderick Klein]

Where did LewisRosenthal write that then ?
Roderick

Hi Roderick, I'm refering to this thread:
https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,2452.0.html

Specifically this part:
Ivan: If your subscription is in force, then you have no rush. The point was for the folks who let their subscriptions lapse (think: early adopters, who purchased ArcaOS 5.0 in May of 2017 with six months included subscription and then never renewed). It's simply not fair to everyone who does renew on time to have people go three years and then re-up for another year at a fraction of the cost of a new license. Everyone else is funding development in the meantime. (And frankly, the vast majority of ArcaOS licensees do renew early or on time, probably because we continue to crank out new stuff and we work tirelessly to address trouble tickets. </shameless plug>)

The part about painting those opting to buy a subscription license later is somehow being "unfair" to others doesn't sit well with me.
I don't think someone who uses their ECS license or their early ArcaOS license owes other people anything.
They paid for the product in the first place. A person that is using something they purchased legally are not a leech.
But maybe i'm being too sensitive about that.

The way I read your response I am not 100% certain you understand what Lewis wrote.

What Lewis his opinion is that some people purchased a license of ArcaOS 5.0 and when half a year later the 6 month the subscription expired and did not renew the subscription. Doing that is a user his right. The included OS/2 license remains always valid.

What Lewis mentioned is that he thinks its not far if people to renew the ArcaOS subscription after not having paid for it for 3 years. The customer then buys a new subscription and would access to version 5.0.6.  It seems BTW recently Arca Noae modified the policy and when you let the subscription expire for a long time you pay an extra fee for getting access again.

Roderick

[Martin Iturbide]

What Lewis mentioned is that he thinks its not far if people to renew the ArcaOS subscription after not having paid for it for 3 years. The customer then buys a new subscription and would access to version 5.0.6.  It seems BTW recently Arca Noae modified the policy and when you let the subscription expire for a long time you pay an extra fee for getting access again.

Hi
This is nothing new on the software market.

IBM, for on premises licenses, there are this three states.
- 1) NEW LICENSE: You buy new licenses with 12 months maintenance.
- 2) RENEWAL: The next year you do a RENEWAL for 20% of the new license cost to have the right to software updates and tickets.
- 3) REINSTAMENT: If you didn't bought the RENEWAL, if you passed the renewal period, you will need to get the REINSTAMENT, that is like 60% of the license cost to have again the right to software updates and tickets.
(This used to apply for OS/2 Warp too, back on the late 90's)

Oracle is worst in my opinion, his way of reinstament is charging you all the years you didn't pay and charge you at once, if you want to have again the right to software updates and tickets.

Regards

[Paul Smedley]

Hey all,

To me it is quite obvious that Roderick is spending a lot of time trying to make people
donate to BWW. Thanks to his reminders I have donated a few times and will do so again today.

I've been trying not to interject into this thread, but I have to get this off my chest.

I for one am a little tired of the constant calls for sponsorship of bww - and the non-mention of other folks who continue to put effort into OS/2 development.

There are many other developers listed at https://www.arcanoae.com/product-category/support-sponsoring/ who also a great job - some of the projects aren't as 'sexy' as a web browser, but they're still worthwhile supporting.

For example - KO's ports of VLC - being able to play videos is a pretty fundamental requirement of any OS these days; Tellie's ports of various Qt utilities.

Cheers,

Paul.

[Sigurd Fastenrath]

My last question regarding the funding of the Browser is, as I have not kept it in mind or simply can not remember, sorry for this; does ArcaNoae itself is involved in Sponsoring as well? Thank you and all the best to all of you!

[Herwig Bauernfeind]

Hi Sigurd,

no, ArcaNoae is not involved. bitwiseworks is alone (with a little help from VOICE).

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Paul, everyone...

...I for one am a little tired of the constant calls for sponsorship of bww - and the non-mention of other folks who continue to put effort into OS/2 development...

That's an excellent point.

All my $$$ contributions, with the exception of the previous AN/AOS Software Subscription or application specific purchases like NetDrive, PMMail, or OpenOffice, have gone to individual authors. These are usually the smaller $20-25 range "injections" into the "system", since I figured most of us still do OS/2 for the sheer challenge/love/joy of it, and long gone are the days of making profits. So I feel like that approach recognizes the on-going individual contributions.

Now, on the subject of the QT framework based browser I will say the following: it is very dishartening for me to see that BWW and AN appear to be un-willing to work on this major undertaking together, or at least that's my perception today.

Sigurd brings up an excellent point: if AN is NOT providing any sponsoring, why is that?

Look, I will turn the tables on this. I have been participating in the AOS Testers List for some time now. The stuff I can test I do, and I always do it very thoroughly, but to do so it takes time. Granted, one cannot participate in all the testing efforts, heck the latest wave of UEFI is a perfect example of this (I simply lack the hardware), but whatever I can test I certainly spend the time to do so. We all know the old saying "time is money", and it's absolutely my choice to continue to donate to on-going AOS developments, but in some ways it is a certain kind of investment, no?

Therefore, it sure would be nice to see AOS provide a somewhat intangible ROI on that time donation and get behind the idea of getting us a more recent Web engine, after all, vast majority of today's "day to day" computing has moved almost entirely into the web space.

Anyways, much speculation here and we are all guessing to an extent, but perhaps what would help is some clearing of the air by our major platform players?

[Ibrahim Hakeem]

Echoing what others have said - I think it's more crucial than ever for marketing to be considered. That statement goes for the wider community of OS/2 developers as opposed to solely focusing on the just-as-important work from Bitwise.

On the note of fundraising - I've witnessed that charitable groups running a monthly or quarterly auto-renewing "set and forget" subscription model seem to garner a lot more success than those which only have the option for once-off donations, even if with reminders to donate again.
Additionally, perhaps it would be a good idea for every new installation of ArcaOS to have a once-off welcome screen promoting and crediting the various groups and people who have created or ported the software which help make this OS what it is today, as well as a recommendation to donate to them so they may continue their work.

One final thought on the train of attracting interest and subsequently, funding for projects: I personally have doubts that the proposed Retro-Gaming-Release of AOS will even produce the sufficient hype we need in attracting new users (consider DOSBox's prevalence and popularity + OS/2 Support). I particularly refer to the younger community, I am yet to come across an active user of ArcaOS or OS/2 in my age range as of yet (20-25) and I feel it is a market we need to work hard to target in order to ensure the longevity of this OS.

Thank you

[Andi B.]

If I understand it correctly Roderick estimated 500-600 unique users based on unique IP addresses in the logs. I thinks this is a false assumption. In my area ISPs use Carrier Grade NAT for the majority of their users. I think this is a common technique in other countries too. At least here in Europe. What this means is, a single user gets a new IP address from the ISPs pool whenever his xDSL or LTE modem connects. Usually at least once a day as most ISPs forces an automatic reconnects at least once a day. Even when you leave your modem running all the time.

So at least I (and I guess the waste majority of users) left a different IP address in the logs every day when I made a yum update. Please let me know if Roderick uses more advanced techniques than counting IP addresses. If not, his values are probably much to high and the active community is much lower than he expects.

[Roderick Klein]

If I understand it correctly Roderick estimated 500-600 unique users based on unique IP addresses in the logs. I thinks this is a false assumption. In my area ISPs use Carrier Grade NAT for the majority of their users. I think this is a common technique in other countries too. At least here in Europe. What this means is, a single user gets a new IP address from the ISPs pool whenever his xDSL or LTE modem connects. Usually at least once a day as most ISPs forces an automatic reconnects at least once a day. Even when you leave your modem running all the time.

So at least I (and I guess the waste majority of users) left a different IP address in the logs every day when I made a yum update. Please let me know if Roderick uses more advanced techniques than counting IP addresses. If not, his values are probably much to high and the active community is much lower than he expects.

If you count the first three octets of the IP address it where 500 unqiue IP addreses. Count all 4 octets it where just over 600 unique IP addresses.
Remeber that this is an indication in my opinion but I described that already.

Roderick

[Martin Iturbide]

I've been trying not to interject into this thread, but I have to get this off my chest.

Paul: KO Myung-Hun, Tellie and you have a great attitude and I hope others developer can have just half of that good vibe.
Don't feel bad, it is just that bitwise is out in the market requesting donations to complete a big project. For the moment it is the only one that have came out and said "I can do this project, but I need this much".

Regards