Trisquel Membership

Sounds like a good idea.

Awesome!

"I have been working on Trisquel for almost seven years now, most of them half time, and full time for roughly the last one. I'm currently living from some small savings and sporadic jobs through Sognus, but the goal for myself would be to become an employee of the Trisquel association, and work in nothing else."

That would be totally ideal. If you are investing full time work into it honestly you should get full time pay. As you obviously know there is nothing wrong w/ making money off free software. I mean people pay ~$100 for a license to use Windows. I would gladly pay $120 a year to support 2 releases (average) of Trisquel. That seems like a great deal.

Maybe it can even get some sort of rewards for being a member. Something like for each month you get 1 point and then maybe in the Trisquel Store you can get 1% off your order up to 10% or something. I don't know I'm just brainstorming.

I just donated $35.

A full-time paid staff would do wonders for the quality of the releases. Trisquel could become the Cadillac of fully-free distros. :P

Of course, some things like writing documentation are best done on an entirely unpaid, volunteer basis, as I am perfectly happy to do.

I decided to make the move of improving my life. This meant I would have to work on a few things, and on of the biggest is security. Without security, you have nothing, not even your health (which is almost everything). It is essential. As with many things in life, there are more ways to be paid that just money, and there is more to security than a lock on your door. Society, i.e. your direct environment, and yet also even the whole world determines your security. We are all in this together, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Only libre software is truly secure. As another thread-maker here stated, the only "practical" distros that I know of from GNU.org is gNewSense and Trisquel. Only if people are presented the opportunity, will they act on something. And for that, Ruben I can't tell you how thankful I am that you have worked so hard on Trisquel. I have to give credit where it is due, so I also thank the people that work on all aspects of what makes Ubuntu, good stuff, as Trisquel is based on it. Without it, Trisquel wouldn't be possible.

However, in short, Trisquel embodies what Ubuntu should be. I have used enough software to know how hard you work on the "polish" and appreciate it. It is the often "small details" in life that can sometimes actually make the most difference. It is the "Premier" OS right now, and I foresee it will continue to gain momentum and grow in its awesomeness.

Without my life story, I don't have money to donate at the moment. But I want to help make change myself and make it my full time job. Perhaps I can help with Trisquel, at least for now. As mentioned above, time is priceless, and I do have at least some of that to give.

So, to avoid highjacking the thread further if I have... I will start by giveing my insight now on the main discussion. :)

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Reoccurring is a good idea, always nice to have options for benefactors. It works for many Non-Profits. Looking at it that way is probably best as well, I think.

As far as making money, I think most libre software makers look at it wrong. Most try to make money off of the "service", like Ubuntu does for commercial customers. I like how RMS envisioned it, where people write "requested" software, and the programmers get paid for their work. After that, the requesters will hopefully make the software available to all, for their own security.

Now, how do you do this? I have some ideas, but that is another discussion. For now, I think we should look at it for Trisquel like this. When you go to download it, you are given the option to make a donation at the time of download, like the Humble Indie Bundle. (which went to the non-profits FSF and Childsplay) There may be more exposure by pointing people to a shopping cart, however it may turn some people away. So perhaps two options would be nice. Two "medium" buttons in the middle of the page, one that says add to cart, with an <.img> that says something like price "?.00" beside it and another that just says download now (next/later page points to direct download and torrent links for both options). If you select the "add to cart" option, a choice to make it reoccurring, maybe monthly or annually could be there on a later page.

Of course, I feel it should and legally will (due to non-profit?) have to remain completely free. But the Humble Indie Bundle and even the band Radio Head gained a lot of exposure and funds with the pay what you want/can idea. Makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside, even if only, 'Wow, I can get this for free!" lol.

In conclusion, I see nothing wrong with "charging" for free software. Again, I think it should be a non-profit donation situation, but only through bold moves are people ever going to allowed free themselves from the slavery that is proprietary software. Paradigm shifts must take place. And Trisquel is so valuable to me because not only does it do so by "just working", but represents an opportunity to be truly free, and truly progress society by offering the opportunity in other aspects of society. Present opportunities to donate, make it simple, easy, and always consider your audience, your users. Keep it exciting, as life should be.

Thank you Ruben, and everyone here. You will change my life through your work, simply by presenting not only myself, but everyone with the opportunity for security. I hope to be able to help spread open philosophy and education in big ways for the world, expanding them on the foundation built here.

I am posting to the site forums. There may be a limit to the transfer to the mailing list... Here is the rest, hopefully, ending with the words "foundation built here".

Of course, I feel it should and legally will (due to non-profit?) have to remain completely free. But the Humble Indie Bundle and even the band Radio Head gained a lot of exposure and funds with the pay what you want/can idea. Makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside, even if only, 'Wow, I can get this for free!" lol.

In conclusion, I see nothing wrong with "charging" for free software. Again, I think it should be a non-profit donation situation, but only through bold moves are people ever going to allowed free themselves from the slavery that is proprietary software. Paradigm shifts must take place. And Trisquel is so valuable to me because not only does it do so by "just working", but represents an opportunity to be truly free, and truly progress society by offering the opportunity in other aspects of society. Present opportunities to donate, make it simple, easy, and always consider your audience, your users. Keep it exciting, as life should be.

Thank you Ruben, and everyone here. You will change my life through your work, simply by presenting not only myself, but everyone with the opportunity for security. I hope to be able to help spread open philosophy and education in big ways for the world, expanding them on the foundation built here.

Oh and yes, thanks for correcting me. It was the EFF. Their work is also invaluable. Again, in "it" together. (Made another post for the benefit of emails, as it may not resend.)

I have another idea. The Slashdot.org crowd seems to really love open source, and often libre software. You usually are better getting an article accepted if you can summarize, i.e. post the interesting parts of the press release. I have to say, the main page of Trisquel.info helped catch my eye, so kudos to quidam and whoever is behind whole page layout. I think it is a little late to post the last announcement, but perhaps lamenting on the libre part will peak interest with Slaine's release. I have had an article or to accepted, and would be glad to do it.

Also mentioned was that Sugar will be on an education version. Sugar has been talked about before often as well...