[kwlug-disc] what would you pay for good kernel documentation?

[Lori Paniak]

I don't know if it is ready for prime-time yet, but the Flattr
micropayment system (http://flattr.com/about ) might be a good option
for your situation and FLOSS projects in general.  

In short, the Flattr user pays a monthly subscription from which a
service fee is deducted. The remainder of the money is equally divided
between sites where the user clicked the "Flattr" button in that month.
The site just gets money in their account and the user doesn't have to
futz around with PayPal. It is not clear how sites extract money from
their accounts, but they do have to maintain an account with monthly
service fees.


On Sat, 2010-06-05 at 07:31 -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> (i posted a longer form of this on the kernel newbies mailing list
> earlier this morning, so i'll just hit the highlights.)
> 
>   to make a long story much shorter, i'm sure there are a number of
> people who know that, for quite some time, i've been a fairly prolific
> writer of things tutorial and educational, including my former kernel
> newbies column at linux.com
> (http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Kernel_newbie_columns).
> sadly, all of that has been a labour of love as i've never charged for
> any it, i've always just given it away.
> 
>   at this point, i'd like to keep writing that sort of stuff for the
> edification of kernel programmers (primarily for newbies, i enjoy that
> kind of writing), but i really need to get something in return to
> justify the time i put into it.  so i suggested a couple possibilities
> on the KN list and, after pondering, i think here's what i'll try.
> 
>   at the moment, my current web site is being revamped totally and
> when it's done in a few days, i'm just going to toss up a paypal
> donate button.  other ideas were collating content into actual
> sellable books, or a small monthly subscription service (a la LWN),
> but those models didn't seem to work.
> 
>   i'm open to other ideas but, for now, i think what i want to do is
> just add a donation button next to what will be a plethora of kernel
> documentation i've written, and let readers judge for themselves what
> it's worth.  new visitors could start with a one-time contribution of,
> say, 5 or 10 bucks and, sometime down the road as long as i keep
> writing and adding to what's there, they might decide to toss
> something in again, who knows?  as long as i keep writing, some people
> might choose to throw something in on a regular basis.
> 
>   i'm mentioning this here since i'm interested in feedback, of
> course.  your thoughts?  how many of you would be a target market for
> that sort of thing?  and if you found the content useful, would you
> consider supporting it?  or, given the vagaries of human nature, do
> you suspect that everyone will simply read, take what they want, and
> leave?
> 
>   and is there anyone out there who's tried something like this?  what
> did you do?  did it work?  etc, etc.  i realize this post is again
> more than a little self-serving but i finally decided that i really
> enjoy writing good tutorials and i'd like to keep writing them, but i
> just need to justify the time invested.
> 
> rday
> 
> 

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