How is LinuxCNC funded?

andypugh wrote:

The web servers and buildbot run on hardware in contributors houses, as far as I know,
The source is hosted for free on Github.

as i run my own personal Linux (CentOS) webserver, i would love to help out, but sadly, i don't have much bandwidth.
though i do host a copy of my config files on my GitHub, in case they are of value in some way.

~Travis

If you wish to pay for a feature in linuxcnc, there is no problem with privately funding a programmer to do so. As long as the code is given back to linuxcnc, we don't really care how it got produced. The look-ahead trajectory planner was a paid code project.

Chris M

meh

@Rob Murphy,

First of all i respect you knowledge !! Nice to have members like you that share knowledge and are close to the edge.

Now running one of the latest debian non linuxcnc distro's. 4.9.0-9-amd64 (uname -r)
It has a huge sudo problem. Even sudo was not installed. So only running this version as root was possible. Later on added sudo and user login was provided. This just for your information.

Runned the back to bone linux server a while (ubuntu server), also nice to start almost from scratch and add your desktop etc.
The LFS project goes me to far. (linux from scratch) www.linuxfromscratch.org/

But i remember Linus Torvalds saying some important thing in one of his interview video's. He was complaining about GPL3 licence's.
He is complaining about GPL3 in this video :
His intention was to stay with GPL2 for all linux distro's. For Linus Torvalds GPL3 is like the devil.

And that is why linuxcnc is not included in Ubuntu or LinuxMint desktop this day's.
So that is really not the opensource way. It's exactly what Chris (mr. Morley) pointed out in 2 post's back from here.
For our next generation's it's good to go back to where it's all started and what the meaning "open source" was at startup phase.

Look at 48 minutes what Linus Torvald has to say. This is the core of open source by Linus Tovalds. In my opinion he has the point. Some institute is playing his card's for him.

Linux Torvalds is also on Github. I think i sent him a thank to you github card. github.com/torvalds

Edit later on :
@Rob Murphy,
One of the clue's was not to install the dependecy (linux library) online during a live install, but to download the dependencies for later on install. To provide a full pack (bucket list) before you start to install linux.

What i miss in this day's is a full off grid install iso or ssd install for what you call 14 dvd's.
A download bash script for all dependencies and repro's, a linux live install with execute option : all dependecies local would be nice.

But i think about that.

meh

Hi

Sorry for the long message but I too have been thinking about how I could get involved and help and how a bit of funding could make an amazing program (kudos to all involved) even better.

Reading through the thread I saw peoples opinions on cash maybe directing this project the wrong way but if it was done in the right way then things could be done right. Maybe to do that we need a connected ecosystem of routes inwards that work together symbiotically.

My thoughts would be.

Patreon:
This doesn't have to be anything more than just a way for grateful people like myself to donate to the project. If I had to buy this program I'd be stuck with Mach3 on windows and would instantly be a few hundred quid down. If everyone donated even £1 a month then the programmers involved can get themselves more than a few beers from us grateful end users.

Website:
A website that tells all about the project and incorporates the forum including full documentation and how to help. I can't program but have all the skills and time to do how to user tutorials on YouTube which could be embedded in the documentation but at the moment I don't know how to contact the project to do this. There can be links from this to Patreon to get funding.

Roadmap:
I'm not sure what system the forum works on i.e. Joomla, wordpress etc but there will be roadmap and voting modules for them. This could be incorporated into the website and registered users can suggest features they want or need. Other users vote them up or down and then the top ideas could be thrashed out between people in the know. They can decide if it's feasible and how it would work and it can be implemented. Users could be linked with Patreon so only people who chip in get a vote; or not depending how it's decided.

Kickstarter:
You mentioned funded projects so how about allowing the top ideas in the roadmap above to be placed on kickstarter and promoted through the site website and the forum? Say we have 1000 users who vote for an improvement, if they chipped in a tenner each then that's £10,000. I would think most improvements could be made for that. Each improvement could be 'sense checked' by the project leaders before becoming a formal release.

Linking back to the Patreon maybe the funds from that go to the project leaders for their sense chaecking or on upgrades to the website or what ever else. This way the project is still free but users can all help out and feel included even if they can't code.

Jools

P.S. Can someone let me know about how I would get how-to videos on the documentation.

meh

I would invest in a kickstarter project to redo the interpreter.