AltME: Community

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Bo
If we had a monetary amount needed, would it be possible to write up a Kickstarter campaign to fund R3 development?
Maxim
shure, as long as you have a precise end-result with milestones,  time estimates, and realistic goals.
but would it actually end up working?
Gregg
My gut feeling is that it would be tough. You need good rewards to entice people, and our community is small.
Arnold
We need more momentum. Meaning a small usable base to start serious advocating the pro's with and possibilities of generating a little money. Attracting young programmers/students willing to contribute, one advantage for students is that not everything is carved in stone yet. (Only what we want to achieve and the toolset is chosen)
Bo
So you could start with a small Kickstarter campaign just to get some momentum going, and then maybe follow it up with a larger one once momentum is up.
Gregg
Still tough. Who is going to pledge that doesn't already?
Bo
If we can pitch something about it that would appeal to the general public (easy-to-develop apps for Android that also run on embedded systems and full computers), then maybe we'll get some new interest.  Especially for popular Kickstarter search terms like Android, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, etc.
"General public" meaning the general geek public.
Gregg
It's the IF and MAYBE that I'm concerned about. :-\ Again, without rewards, who will pledge?
Arnold
some ideas for real life apps needed? I have some. Non-geeks need apps too.
No tools to make these apps atm
;)
Arnold
@Graham: GitX; found another alternative very promising, even did a fetch(!) from the master branch I wanted but could find nowhere: sourcetree
http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/
Robert
Maarten, some thoughts about all this. IMO R3 or what it's than called is not the end product. It's an enabeling technology to make good products in a very short time.
So, what's interesting about it is, that one gets access to a complete vertical technology stack. The black-box dependencies (those that you can't influence) are mostly zero. Of course you don't have a big community, eco-system etc. around. But I'm coming more and more to the point that I don't need a big eco-system, I need the right eco-system. I don't want to use big frameworks, zillions of libs etc. This all makes product development a hell.
A mean and lean technology stack, that is maintainable, can be adjusted to some special needs with the fundamental things available is everything you need.
What I would do if I could afford is, is to re-implement R3 using the D language. This should result in a more simple code base (Carl's code base is in a very good shape, so don't take me wrong), and using this we would close the most fundamental missing parts in R3. There are around 5-8 topics that need to be addressed. Andreas and I just had a short chat about this this week.
R3 gives us the chance to use one technology on a broad range of systems. I don't say the same code, but the same technology.
There are several levels of work that can be scaled up. The base layer stuff, that's the C & D level.
Than we have fundamental frameworks and libs like R3-GUI etc. this is a mix of Rebol code and enhancements on the C/D level.
Than we have the product level, that's what's visible and keeps the fire burning. Spitting out cool applications in a fast rate is key. I see several markets to address: B2B tools, mostly more effort to develop but long lasting and big money. Consumer or Internet market applications. More low cost but high volume stuff.

Last message posted 562 weeks ago.