[Pidgin] #34: Voice/video support

[Pidgin]

#34: Voice/video support
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  Reporter:  MarkDoliner  |       Owner:  seanegan
      Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  assigned
  Priority:  minor        |   Milestone:          
 Component:  libpurple    |     Version:          
Resolution:               |    Keywords:          
   Pending:  0            |  
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Comment (by Christian):

 Hi all,[[BR]]

 I've been following this for quite some time now. And since I'm one of
 those people who would love to see the video/voice chat feature
 implemented sooner rather than later, I thought I'd add my two
 cents:[[BR]]

 As a student of Business Administration, I know nothing about programming.
 But I do believe that the OSS movement faces two fundamental
 problems:[[BR]]

 1) Little cooperation between projects: People do develop OSS for their
 own pleasure. When they're discontent with the development of their
 project, they create a fork. So, instead of creating software that'd be
 able to challenge their commercially developed competitors, teams of OSS
 developers tend to split up.[[BR]]

 2) OSS projects barely have a dude assigned to do proper marketing. Had
 this project anything like a marketing manager, I bet Pidgin would have
 had video chat ages ago.



 However, as I've pointed out already, OSS developers have a different
 driver for their work: fun (or idealism), rather than users' needs.
 So, what can we do to still get what we as users want, if the developers
 aren't currently willing to commit their time to it?
 Well, I guess we could try bribing them. If they had a monetary
 compensation in prospective, they might be willing to sacrifice some time
 on our wishes.



 What I propose is that we set up a public pledge on
 http://www.pledgebank.com/.
 When enough people have pledged to contribute their share of, say, US-$ 10
 each to a set amount, we can then open up a fund at
 http://www.fundable.com/.
 Then, people have 25 days to create a PayPal account and "renew" their
 pledge on fundable.com.
 If, after 25 days, the "goal" has been reached, fundable.com will debit
 the amount pledged from the users' PayPal accounts and transfer the money
 to a designated account.[[BR]]

 If, after those 25 days, we figure out some people changed their minds,
 fundable.com will simply delete the pledge, and nothing will happen. We
 then just created a lot of hot air, and our PayPal accounts will remain
 untouched.



 I've tried to figure out how much money would be required to actually
 implement video chat.[[BR]]

 As I've said already, I know nothing about programming. At all. But I've
 read that there are obviously some libraries already available that could
 be used. So I guess it wouldn't be too much work for an experienced
 person. [[BR]]

 Next thing, I tried to figure out how much a programmer would get per
 hour. US-$50/hr seems to be a good guess, according to salery.com.[[BR]]

 And US-$1000 seems to be a good goal, as it'd give us a programmer work 20
 hours on the project. Besides, it's a nice round number. And the
 individual pledge of US-$ 10 would be affordable even by a student like
 myself.

 If you now take the US-$1000 needed, and add[[BR]]

 1) 5% credit card fees PayPal seems to charge when money is paid into an
 account using a credit card,[[BR]]
 2) 4% fees for transferring money across borders,[[BR]]
 3) 2,5% fees for currency conversions,[[BR]]
 4) US-$ 10 fundable.com will charge for a payout by cheque,[[BR]]
 5) 7% fees fundable.com will charge us when we actually reach the
 goal,[[BR]]
 you get a total of about US-$1210 needed.[[BR]]
 (Percentages and total sum are rounded and approximates only, based on
 fees for PayPal Germany. Note that I've never actually used any of those
 services, so I might be somewhat off the real amounts. That's why I will
 not accept any liability for my miscalculations. ;)

 Given all this, I propose we set up a pledge now, that “I will contribute
 US-$10 towards the total amount needed to begin the implementation of
 video and voice chat for Pidgin IM on the two major platforms (Windows and
 Linux), if 120 other people join me and pledge the same by April 1st,
 2008, the Pidgin developers support the move and any source code produced
 is placed under an open source certified license compatible with
 Pidgin's”.


 By "the pidgin developers support the move", I mean that I want the Pidgin
 devs advertise the pledge on their website and possibly in the program
 itself in prominent places, so people interested in joining the pledge
 actually get the chance to.
 As soon as we've the 121 people together, we'll inform the developer team,
 so their lead developer or webmaster can create a fundable.com pledge.
 That way, we can ensure the money actually reaches the team. The reason
 for not starting directly at fundable.org's place is that their pledges
 have a maximum live span of 25 days.
 When the team got the money, they can decide whether to keep it and
 implement the changes themselves, or hire an independent developer
 somewhere on the planet to do the job for them.

 Of course I realise that the money might not be enough to finish the
 project. But it surely will be enough to prove our point and get the whole
 thing started, to give somebody out there an incentive to at least try...

 What do you think?
 What do the devs think?
 If enough of you tell me it’s worth a try, I’ll set up the pledge
 immediately.
 If the devs tell me that US-$1000 is never ever going to even get this
 going, I obviously won’t…
 But at least I’d like to see us all trying to get this gridlock resolved…

 Looking forward to your feedback. :)

 Regards,[[BR]]
 Christian

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/34#comment:55>
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