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List:       quanta
Subject:    [Quanta] Quanta internal development information
From:       Eric Laffoon <eric () kdewebdev ! org>
Date:       2008-07-15 0:37:40
Message-ID: 200807141737.40926.eric () kdewebdev ! org
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Hi all,
I feel I should do an update on various things happening with Quanta. I 
discussed it with Andras and I guess he did a blog which probably most people 
didn't read. So here's what's up, and this isn't really bad news or good 
news, just news. I think it's relevant as I get ready for the annual 
conference I missed last year.

First a brief history for those unfamiliar... By 2001 I had gotten involved 
with Quanta and sponsored the original developers who got the bright idea 
they could make a fortune with a proprietary package. Quanta was unmaintained 
and I met Andras. He helped in his spare time to fix some things and in mid 
2001 I begain sponsoring him with my own money. I was expecting to make good 
money in my business and shut off cable and every expense I could think of. 
However I became sick and had to ask for community support. Since then we 
have been supported in this way. I really got sick of begging for money and 
let it slide. Business wise I have missed opearting expenses by a few 
thousand dollars at key times to effectively end up with 10% or less of the 
raw materials my business needed to reach explosive growth. This is the first 
year I'm on top of it and could hit 80%-95%!

Early this year Andras was feeling stress from my being behind and from the 
falling dollar, as well as financial concerns at home. Moreover he was 
getting bogged down all on his own with some huge hurdles that required a 
more mature platform. It was a bad place for him and he stuck his feelers out 
and of course realized he was worth several times what I could presently pay 
him. He is now doing contract programming for another developer on Qt. 

Andras and I are committed to jointly continuing to lead the project. This 
year I did quite a bit of programming on Kommander and Andras helped. He also 
got some important ground work done on Quanta. Unfortunately as I expected 
there were some delays with using the KDevelop platform. Nonetheless I'm 
confident it will prove extremely valuable. Andras is also considering 
helping to sponsor a new developer.

As I run my business out of pocket and intentionally have not been using 
credit I pay as I go. Unfortunately insuring I don't come up short this year 
means I'm spending thousands of dollars more on key maintenance of our catnip 
crop while at the same time working without income from my wholesale arm of 
the business due to inventory shortages. Enduring the coldest spring since 
1917 here hasn't helped as we are two months behind schedule. By this fall 
when we harvest our business will be in a major expansion. We have played at 
supplying 200 pet stores. We're looking at adding sales staff and getting 
serious with 750 or more by this time next year. 

What this means for our project is that even if I'm too busy to program I will 
be able to sponsor several developers and I will at least be able to find 
time to manage the project, along with Andras. Of course I would welcome 
help, but I am happy to spend money I wouldn't miss for my pet project. I'm 
also planning on getting together with Andras and Michal (former Kommander 
developer) for some vacation hacking sessions.

In the mean time I still have not gotten my tickets for the conference, which 
I need to do this week. I have had an indication from our largest sponsor he 
would help. I have a several thousand dollar job coming up this week doing a 
large outdoor cat enclosure. I'm also looking at a personal loan from a 
friend of the family as we plan on hiring their daughter full time this fall. 
Money is not an issue for me... cash flow is. Typically 80% of our travel 
cost is reimbursed. Everything I have in excess will go to sponsoring a new 
developer, which I will begin looking for in August and plan to start as soon 
as September.

This project has been declared dead before. I didn't pay any attention to the 
chatter then and I'm not now. If you would like to contribute to the project 
to assist me I would appreciate it. I'm sure I will get to the conference, 
but if I were to miss it I also know that would end up moving my focus a year 
behind... which is what missing last year did. I can't miss any more 
conferences! I need to have some time to hack code, plan and focus my 
energies. This is an exciting time for Quanta because I get to be truly 
useful as a manager instead of a figurehead under a release manager. For me 
that is the time to shine and make things happen. There are a lot of 
improvements I'd like to put in the next version. We're not yet totally 
killing every other web development tool. That's not good enough! ;-)
-- 
Eric Laffoon
Project Lead - kdewebdev module
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