I agree with you Rogue, the OS community, such as it is, is very small, but seems to have more than its fair share of malcontents who must not have that much going on in their lives that they have to resort to the kind of pettiness they do in order to bolster their own sense of self-importance, even though its always expressed in a negative sense. I recently made a rare comment in The Box about contributing money to the voice module project, which is not progressing because of insufficient funding. One person commented that they didn't use voice, so the project wasn't worth backing. The comment served to highlight the small-minded and self-centred attitude of far too many in our 'community'. If we want nice things in OS then they have to be financed somehow, and in terms of development we're talking about RL levels of pay for the coding work needed. I'm sure that those who are willing to do that kind of coding would be more than happy to do it for special rates, but at the end of the day everyone has rent and bills to pay. Many of us would use a voice module were it available, (I personally have no use for it, but some years ago I was involved in developing an OS region for a specific purpose where voice enablement was a crucial requirement. It also needed to be spatial, but Vivox was unsuitable for reasons of privacy and security. The lack of availability of a dedicated OS voice module put an end to the project). There is a similar need for a dedicated OS only viewer, as all the viewers we currently use are primarily configured for the needs of Second Life. There is currently only one such project, the Dayturn Viewer project for those of you who have Windows or Mac computers.
It’s good that we have so many performers and Djs who are prepared to perform or play sets wherever there is a demand. If those grids that are complaining bitterly were employing those Djs and performers for RL rates of pay, then fair enough, they might have some concerns, but only in as much as the particular contract they have with that DJ/performer is fulfilled. No DJ or perfomer is a slave to any grid owner, which is basically what those grid owners are expecting.
Yes, our the OS community is small, but not that small that if we were to come together more and help each other out through making whatever positive contributions we feel able to when we can, the whole is uplifted and we will all benefit. It’s probable that OS is severely underfunded on the development side, but as ordinary users we have no idea about what is needed and how much it will cost. OSGrid has for some years now been constantly asking for contributions, but the splash page gives no indication as a running total of how much is needed, and how much has been raised to meet that need. Ditto with OpenSimulator core itself. We know that development goes on slowly, and that the devs are volunteer, but how much of a difference would being able to pay them so that they could put in at least part-time paid hours on a regular basis?
It’s difficult to know just how many users OS has in its entirety, but surely it’s going to be a figure well into the tens of thousands. If everyone downloading any version of OpenSimulator made a small donation to the project it could make a vast difference, even if that donation were as small as a Euro,a Dollar or a Pound. I run Ubuntu MATE on my machines, and every time I download a new version of the operating system I make a donation of the recommended $2.50. I’m on an extremely low income.I’m aware that others might struggle to even afford that, so I’m adamant that this kind of software should remain zero cost to download and use, but create an awareness that whole notion of ‘Free’ where cost is concerned, is highly questionable.
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