Re: Video recording of LilyPond talk at Chemnitz

[David Kastrup]

Janek Warchoł <address@hidden> writes:

> On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 1:17 PM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Jonas Olson <address@hidden> writes:
>>> When donating, is there any mechanism in place by which funds will be
>>> donated only if some target level is reached by all donations
>>> together?  I'm speculating people might be more comfortable when they
>>> know that they will lose money if and only if it is precisely what
>>> makes the difference between you working and not working on LilyPond
>>> full time.
>
> In my opinion, the "cap thing" does exactly that.
>
> Besides, i think the core of the problems lies elsewhere:
> 1) most of the people thinks this doesn't concern them
> 2) many people think "i cannot afford / i'm not comfortable with
> donating 10 euro/month, so i won't donate anything".  This is really
> sad; Lily has hundreds (thousands?) of users and if they donated 1
> euro each month (doesn't this sound funny concerning how powerful
> LilyPond is?) it would make a big difference.

It tends to feel like the classical case of "Somebody Else's Problem",
and I am somewhat at a loss of how to deal with that without getting
cynical to a degree that those who do support me don't deserve.

The talk in Chemnitz was disturbing in that respect.  I was rather
straight about the need to finance my further contribution to LilyPond,
and there was no shortage of listeners coming to me after the talk,
letting some LilyPond problem getting solved by me (so it was clear that
they were actually using LilyPond on a regular basis), and afterwards
wishing me with somewhat shifty eyes most sincerely good luck in my
quest for funding, and that it would be a real shame if I were not
successful with it.  I did not win any funders there.  I suppose that in
real life, I act too polite and understanding to actually be successful
at what more or less amounts to rubbing people's noses in their
inconsistent expectations.

Of course, it does not win me any favors with victims of such behavior
from me in mailing lists, but there are bystanders who may get into
thinking.

I really wish I knew how to deal with that sort of cognitive dissonance
more gracefully, but grace has never really been my strong suit.  But
then check LilyPond's issue database for "grace", and you'll see that
this is par for the course.

-- 
David Kastrup