I wanted to do this but, in my stomach, I feel a flaw of some sort hence why I came on here. I thought it’d be neat to do a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to hire some devs to work on an API for d*.
What do you all think?
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I think too many people got stung by the original Diaspora Kickstarter. I’d be surprised if anyone would ever front money to the project again.
I’d really like the idea. But publicly, wouldn’t it be harmful ? People still believe that diaspora* was mess and founders left with the money. 
It may not work, but I’m sure as hell willing to try. We got nothing to lose really. I’m willing to put my ass on the line for a community that actually loves and appreciates me.
I’d back it if you were coding it.
But as mentioned, the original Kickstarter left a bad taste in the mouths of thousands (literally) of people.
Myself included.
Me too. Do you think it is publicly worth ?
If the elder wise devs say yes, I’m in.
From what I understand we don’t have an API because the features aren’t completely nailed down. If you do do a Kickstarter I think it should be for an actual product like an iOS/Windows Phone/FirefoxOS/Android app, an API is a little too abstract for people to grok.
There already exists an application for iOS/Windows Phone/FirefoxOS/Android, based on Firefox mobile 
On the plus side, it’ll get people talking about Diaspora again! =)
I’m on the fence about this, but if we do decide to go ahead with it we should make it clear from the outset that we’re a different group than the original team. Kickstarter might seem low-risk / high reward, but I believe that there’s actually a lot more to it than most people think.
what you must be aware of is that diaspora as a project currently has to work out its situation regarding donations as the current legal structure makes it rather complicated to pay any single person for doing something.
under these circumstances it’s hard to accept donations marked for a specific purpose…
while personally I am not against the plan of a croud-funding campaign for a specific purpose it might be better to postpone it until we know more.
@florianstaudacher Maybe I could help? I wrote the license for Nova Componere and am willing to work on such a thing.
@florianstaudacher What is the current legal structure? Are those documents available anywhere? I am curious.
@amosmeeks there is a small team of core community guys working on creating transparency regarding the legal situation, in relation to the FSSN (http://freesoftwaresupport.org/). Hopefully we can have the discussions documented soon - and after that hopefully all discussion can be transparent and in the open.
As for kickstarter, personally once we can do things officially, it would be great to launch small crowdfunders for a big feature for example. As long as it’s not Kickstarter. Something other, like Indiegogo or something 
In my opinion it’s easier to use a solution like bountysource : https://www.bountysource.com/teams/diaspora
+1 @flaburgan
As it is then the developer that gets paid and not Diaspora.
Therefore there are no legal (or moral) issues to contend with.
@theatrex I guess you could crowedsource/crowdfund a “bounty pool” of cash for an API? I’d certainly chip in
For your information there is already a pull request but the work is not over: https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/pull/4554
As it is then the developer that gets paid and not Diaspora.
“Bountysource charges a 10% fee on all withdrawals from your Bountysource account. This includes any money earned from Bounties, Fundraisers, or Donations.”
I’m not saying that is unreasonable, but IMHO I’d rather let contributors get 100% than 90%
So +1 for bountysource too. I don’t see how these somehow overlap? They are just tools to do funding. It’s like saying email OR social media - there is no hard either or choice here.
Btw, Bountysource for diaspora* says:
Note: Donations are disabled because this team has no members.
How do you join as a member??