[TxMt] Re: Texmate 2

[JiHO]

On 2009-June-14  , at 17:53 , Scott Haneda wrote:

> There are a good deal of comments on the blog as well as reddit about
> the no pay for version 2 issue.  I am more or less in the camp of
> "charge for version 2", especially if the lack of a charge is in any
> way adding to a lack of motivation to get 2 out the door.

I also think hard work should be rewarded and TM 2.0 seems to have  
been hard in the making. Yet, if I recall correctly, Allan said that  
he did not feel like charging for TM 2 because, in his mind, TM 2 will  
be what TM 1 really should have been (it was in a Q&A after a talk at  
C4). So, in a way, all of us who paid for a finished product, "already  
paid" for TM 2. This is very noble of him and quite humbling when you  
see how good TM 1 already is, despite the rough edges.

Of course Allan's financial situation might have changed (2 years is a  
long time) but if he still feels like he can live out of the new  
purchases, I think there is another hard work that's essential and  
could be rewarded with the money everyone seems ready to spend. TM is  
great because of its bundles and there's been a healthy, hard-working  
and productive open-source community built around those. I think  
bundle developers typically did not expect money in return for their  
work. But TM is not free software and since there is money involved,  
it would seem fair that those deserving people get their share too.
I don't know which form that could take. It could be a donation page  
where every one chooses which bundles (s)he wants to give money to, or  
Alllan picking the bundles he sees as most active and most used. It  
would be even nicer if it could bring some value back to TextMate,  
like, for example, employing Michael Sheets part or full time to  
manage the bundles (if that is not already the case). Or paying some  
bounties for the development of specific features in bundles, the  
polishing of what potentially unexperienced bundles developers  
produced, the unification of some behaviors across bundles etc.

Anyway, that's just an idea and Allan has probably thought about that  
before. I just wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work  
of all those people working around but outside of TextMate and maybe  
get the ball rolling in their direction.

PS: for full disclosure, I am subscribed to TextMate dev, committed a  
few things here and there, and improved the Fortran bundle. But I  
don't consider myself a bundle developer at all. There are plenty of  
other people that devoted much more of their time to make some great  
bundles.

JiHO
---
http://jo.irisson.free.fr/