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List:       quanta
Subject:    Re: [Quanta] My report on Quanta sponsorship (and request for help)
From:       Eric Laffoon <sequitur () kde ! org>
Date:       2005-05-22 7:55:58
Message-ID: 200505220135.06020.sequitur () kde ! org
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On Saturday 21 May 2005 07:09, Ewald wrote:
> > > http://kdewebdev.org/donate.php
> >
> > In case anyone is interested...
>
> Everyone on this list (and many more) should be interested and it makes me
> sad that there isn't more response to your call for help :(:(
>
> Ewald
Thanks Ewald. I appreciate your support. Two more people stepped up yesterday 
and now I'm getting close to my first goal and in a little better mood. If 
anyone is interested, I'm still only on my way to a great mood. ;-)

I want to add some more explanation of my long term plan and my current 
financial considerations on the web site soon. My finances are sort of weird 
compared to what most people would be familiar with. I own a business 
(kittyhooch.com) which was a part time thing that I focused on after my mom 
passed away in 2001 and I was too depressed to pursue web development 
clients. The paradox is that it has good profit margins and is very popular, 
but I'm constrained from realizing the potential of the business until I can 
move to a farm and expand. Because of reversals in years past I have no 
equity to convert to get a farm. Being self employed I can spend time on the 
kdewebdev project as I see fit, but this also makes it more difficult to get 
credit and of course there are the costs of doing business. Within a few 
years I hope to have practically unlimited funds for pet projects, but right 
now an unanticipated reversals could set me back a year easily. 

For the long term though my objective with kdewebdev is to get the funds in 
order to set up a tax exempt charitable foundation for software development. 
Unfortunately this costs thousands of dollars and takes some time and 
headaches, but the positive is that it makes it pretty easy to secure large 
donations from companies. For companies contributing becomes effectively a 
tax shelter to support software they benefit from. The potential here is 
huge! I could never have to ask for money on the list again (Yay!) and 
instead I could be taking surveys for what additional plugin tools our users 
would like to see developed. 

This is why it is frustrating for me when I run the risk of being forced to 
deal with subsistence issues, or worse, instead of advancing to our goals. A 
tiny fraction of our users can make a huge difference. Some people may think 
that Quanta is already good enough. I think it has reached 30%-40% of the 
potential I would like it to have. I believe Quanta can play a key part in 
both helping to keep the web standards based and helping to convert a lot of 
people to free software. I'm excited about this and I hope more people will 
be able to share the joy that I have in being part of making it happen. 
Together we can have some fun. It feels great to make a difference! ;-)
-- 
Eric Laffoon - Quanta+ Team Leader 
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
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