Submitted by SymphonyOS, one of the more refreshing Linux distributions, is in trouble, since its lead developer is in financial troubles. “Core symphony development is currently stalled as I am without electricity in my apartment. I need to raise some money this week in order to have electric restored and cover some expenses. Project donations are greatly appreciated and any referral for paying projects are greatly appreciated as well. I have really big plans for symphony in the near future that will hopefully blow some larger distros out of the water. I cant wait to share them all with you.”
Please, if you can afford to do so, help this project out. They are one of the few distributions that are trying to “think differently”. Ryan has dedicated the past year and a half to this project, and the least we could do is try to give him a hand.
I understand that some financial situations prohibit giving; I am in the same boat. However, if you could spare a couple of dollars, you’d be supporting a project that (I believe) will pay you back many more times that in the future.
Thanks for your time,
Alexander Drummond
The site is currently undergoing heavy stress; in case of down-time, here is a direct link to Ryan’s paypal: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=symphonyo…
Edited 2006-07-29 21:28
Maybe he could get a job? Just a thought.
He did have a job; he left it so that he could work full time on Symphony. If you had read the article (rather short), you would have known this.
I didn’t know I was reading slashdot.
Why should we pay for his foolishness? I mean, I respect the work he’s done so far, he did do something nice with his project but leaving your day job to work on an open source project full time wasn’t really a bright idea. Unless somebody sponsors you to work on your project, of course.
This guy is doing things I have wanted to do.
And I was in a similar situation a few months back. I am still getting out of it, but I had to give him something to help. Others helped me, why cant I do the same?
ok the lead developer has problems with his electricity bills..
so explain how does it help when i contribute my money to “the project”.
before i even think about donating money, please give a clear overview about which “expensive” this lead developer is talking about.
what is isptec.net in that paypal link?
Edited 2006-07-29 22:00
i always find it so funny when these things happen. Before it was the blastwave guy. Honestly, its just software, its not the end of the world if people can’t use it. Most people will just look for something else to use.
Just be glad that Linus Torvalds never had to do this; thanks to people like you, Linux would have never happened then.
I swear.
Just be glad that Linus Torvalds never had to do this; thanks to people like you, Linux would have never happened then.
I swear.
I’m not sure about Finland but I believe most European countries have to provide a basic minimum of electricity if you can’t pay your bills, enough for a light and to cook food. Belgium does anyway.
Also I’m pretty sure Linus is smarter than to keep 4 (!) servers running while not being having the money to pay essential bills. Not to mention the fact Linus has always had a job while developing Linux, including a full-time position at Transmeta where his job probably wasn’t Linux related.
Not to mention the fact Linus has always had a job while developing Linux, including a full-time position at Transmeta where his job probably wasn’t Linux related.
Not only was it not Linux related, Wikipedia reports that it resulted in proprietary software.
Yes there is that kind of humour – which IMO can be really funny .
But in this case someone has a vision & he dedicates all his rescources to furfill this vision .
Along the way he has sacrificied his job – this is where I think something went a bit wrong – because the money will eventually dry up & the monetary load must be spread across many people not just one .
But unfortunatly no job & no money are now fact – therefore IMO the thing now to think about is where to get money from .
Ill look at Symphony-OS again – as far as I remember very interesting ideas – & might donate .
I applaude such dedication & as the other poster said – without the dedication & belief in the vision many an other thing wouldnt have developed or happened in computing or general life either – were people to just give up .
Okay Im overdramatizing here a bit – but the alternative I severly dislike .
From what I remember of looking at Symphony it implements things & has ideas which I am very much missing in other Linux-OSes .
Arent there ways for Linux projects to somehow easily apply for sponsorship – there must be something … ?
Lots of luck .
Just IMO
I have four dedicated systems in my house used exclusively for symphony development. Tell me how the electricity to run all these systems used for development doesnt get included as a cost of maintaining the project. I also have paid out of my own pocket for the two dedicated servers the project uses.
I have worked on this project since the spring of 2004 at it’s inception. I lost a job I had had for over five years and durring the first month and a half when my new venture wasnt bringing in enough I used my savings to keep the servers going and the dev machines up.
isptec.net (in the paypal link) is a domain I own. At first it was just a play on the fact that I was an ISP Tech. Then symphony os was born as a set of pages on that site. Later, at one time it was going to be a dialup isp through my former employer along with some other sites I ran. The ISP was never launched and the associated sites are dormant. I decided that rather than try to do ten things at once I would have a go at being able to put more time into making symphony a great OS.
No one is forcing anyone to do anything here. If you do not feel it is worth contributing that is fine. I hope you try out our next release and enjoy it nonetheless.
But to sum it up. If you feel like someone is trying to pull one over on you or take advantage DONT donate anything.
Keep up the good work.
I have just donated. A person like you wouldn’t ask without a good reason, and I believe you are giving a lot to the OSS community.
I wanted to donate as anonymous but stupid PayPal wouldn’t let me do it.
Alright I’m not going to shred you for quittin the job like some other people have done here, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. If you’re going to quit your job and rely on community support you can’t just sit around and wait for the money to run out. Here is an example of how this can be done right. Colin Percival dropped his job to work on FreeBSD full-time but he had a gameplan and laid everything out professionally to encourage people to help out.
http://people.freebsd.org/~cperciva/funding.html
On a side note, I would donate but I have issues with Symphony. The two times I tried it, the livecd worked fine but the final install booted up and froze at a blank white screen. Not very useful to me.
As far as I know, nobody put a gun over nobody’s head. This is a project that got really interesting with a really new UI (more than better ‘advertised’ distros). If you have any doubt check http://www.tuxmachines.org and search for SymphonyOS.
If you think this is a SCAM, then go away, check your sources, and then post.
I can’t f***cking donate because I’m in a freaking underdeveloped country (Argentina) which has no Paypal availability withing Credit cards, and you are arguing for money you ain’t gonna miss, unless you were set to buy a damn pizza. . . cause that what it’d cost ya.
I wish I could create a PayPal account and send you $25. Only for developped countries I guess.
Symphony stands out from the croud, it looks good, although I never used it.
Good luck.
–Joe
I ask this in all honesty, because I’m curious. Why would PayPal care what country you’re in? It’s a web based service.
no matter if it is a web based service, it’s dealing with money and with credit, it must comply with laws in the country of residence of the member or both countries (US and the contry the member resides in) must have agreements that enable the “legal” side of PayPal to work.
if you check paypal list of allowed countries you see that they are not many. I live on Brazil, I can use paypal but I can’t withdraw money to brazilian bank accounts for example (so I spend it all on eBay… 🙂 )
This is the same reason why you can’t use iTunes music store from some countries…. the technology works and the bank network work but the laws don’t…
and yes, it sucks.
Interesting. I guess it never occurred to me that it would matter what country you were using the service from, but ya learn something new every day.
I have made a small donation although I dont use Symphony. I use Mepis and Suse. I have had good luck with them. I believe that projects like Symphony have a place where other distros take small pieces of code end up in my distro. Good Luck.
Larry
Snaker said, “I have made a small donation although I dont use Symphony. I use Mepis and Suse. I have had good luck with them. I believe that projects like Symphony have a place where other distros take small pieces of code end up in my distro. Good Luck.”
—
What Snaker said, except in my case, I use X/Ubuntu.
Good luck.
I was reading about Symphony OS and the user interface ideas are very interesting. It is cool the way they have incorporated the Mozilla renderer into the desktop so you can produce quick desktop widgets with a little XUL, python or javascript. Very cool ‘Orchestra’ XUL ideas. The unusual destop UI with hotpoints in the screen corners is different. I wonder how it compares to the standard destop metaphor used in Gnome/Windows in terms of user accessability. I tried out spatial Nautilus for a couple of days before it annoyed me too much so trying new things is good but having the choice to set the destop to what you like is even better. What is the licensing for the OS? I wouldn’t mind contributing some paypal cash if the source is freely distributable similar to GPL.
Edited 2006-07-30 01:15
It is GPL and the source is available by request, until we get our CVS back up an running.
SymphonyOS is a radical departure from the tradition implementation of the desktop metaphor. Your desktop is a Firefox canvas. You can do just about anything with your desktop that you can do in a web application, plus you have native and local access to the client system and higher-level APIs for desktop-type functionality. One can only imagine how quickly the community could develop a wide variety of powerful GUIs based on this platform… once it stabilizes.
Look at it this way–if Google were to really develop the mythical GoogleOS, they would do it very much like this. Web services rendered straight to your desktop, and it would be a huge understatement to observe that the implications for thin clients are intriguing.
Besides the desktop itself, the Fitt’s Law inspired workspace switchers and window management are based on FVWM2. This means that you have snappy and responsive interaction, as well as the most massively configurable look and feel you could possibly want (e.g. mouse gestures can be implemented in the configuration file without any changes to FVWM itself). As an added bonus, SymphonyOS doesn’t ship with a default FVWM configuration that features hot pink titlebars!
If you have a paying job and enjoy free software, please help this guy out. He’s sacrificed his standard of living in the hopes of making in impact on ours. You might question his judgement, but you can’t question his intentions.
I’m headed right over to DistroWatch. We might be just in time to tip the July donation (due to be announced on Monday) in favor of SymphonyOS. Coming with?
Boy this sounds like a scam.
Jason Spisak carefully worded his replies so that he never said he donated money to the project himself. He’s distancing himself as fast as he can. Didn’t Jason Spisak run Lycoris into the ground as well? Then he went on to element and released “ion” – promised everyone the world, and gave them the shaft. That project went down in a heap of flames. Jason promised full windows compatibility yet never delivered, promised tablet computers and never delivered. Lots of never delivering on things.
Looks like there was an additional post of marketspeak by “butters” above. Either Jason wrote it or had someone do it for him. Never have I seen such a horrible marketspeak disguised as a post. “Tip the july donation in favor of SymphonyOS” – he calls it SymphonyOS not just Symphony which everyone else does.
SymPHONY is what it is as long as Jason Spisak is associated with them.
Ryan would do well to drop Jason and just develop quality software.
Jill
Ryan,
just sent a couple bucks your way. My paypal balance is not high so I can not send you more but belive me when I say that your project brings fresh air to the linux distros helm. You have the only linux distribution that was friendly enough for me to show to my mother who is not a computer user but could understand Symphony OS very easily.
I was once under trouble and made a simillar call for help so I know how it feels. If everything goes fine you’ll be good soon!
Best wishes from Brazil.
Andre Garzia
Why shoudn’t we propose SymphonyOs for the next distrowatch donation.
but I kicked in something….
to ryan – first, i think it is great that you are trying to do something different. it will also be nice if some friends can give you a temporary boost here. that said, won’t you just be in the same boat in three months or less?
my polite suggestion is to get a job in a FOSS-friendly environment that provides some support to doing your symphony work. this will be hard to find but not impossible. it may slow the pace of the work down, but frankly the world can wait.
Is there an address to which one can send an international money order or an international cashier’s cheque?
Yes, it’s not as immediate as paypal, but it will help.
I will not use Paypal as long as my backside points to the ground!
Maybe a moneybooker account.
Where is Jason Spisak when Ryan needs a buck? They have a business plan (no link because the site is down), so can’t his partner help him out?
Edited 2006-07-30 08:01
This could easily sound like a publicity stunt too.
Probebly best to set up donation drives so people are aware before the power goes out. I hope you are cool if you’re in the northern hemisphere; it should cool down at the end of this week.
Also IBM has an SOA program as well you could check out. Maybe you could link up with a phone support company ala Ubuntu. Check out an SOA program as it’s the new way to do business in an Internet age.
Also, doesnt OSDL have a program where they give money to projects?
he quit his paying job to work on something that would make him no money? And he expects me to have sympathy?
He didn’t quit. The company he worked for made him a freelancer… in part because of the project, capisce?
Then he built a consulting company from dust and now he’s trying to make it happen. But going on your own is not as easy as it seems…
I am shocked at all the folks who dont understand the situation this guy is in. He has created something, pretty much using his own free time and money, to give to the greater community. Now that he is down and out he is just asking that very same community, if they found what he has done useful, to give back a little to help him continue.
Why is there such hostility? “Get a Job”? That is the funniest thing i have heard. He probably has a job, the issue is that his job (or JOBs) may only pay for a portion of what he needs to work with, to continue his dream….hardware,software,manhours cost alot. (Just a social note: Not everyone is making $25-$30 an hour, and getting 40 hours a week of work…)
If you dont use SymphonyOS or do not see the need for it, or do not see a value for it, dont donate. But dont be so calous (jealous?) and down him because he was brave enough to follow his dreams and try to create something of value. More power to him! I have never checked out the OS, and I am honestly not a Linux person so i probably will not donate….but sheesh!
We live in a capitalist world, but telling the guy that you have no sympathy for him and he should get a job is seriously heartless. Not everything that happens to one is under one’s control. Like a previous poster, I have never used SymphonyOS and I am not a linux user myself, but I think this developer deserves to be encouraged.
“We live in a capitalist world, but telling the guy that you have no sympathy for him and he should get a job is seriously heartless.”
So those of us who do have jobs are supposed to send the money we make from it to support those who decided to quit their jobs so they could spend all their time working on a hobby project?
I don’t see how it is heartless to tel him to get a job. After all, as I said, I’m sure a lot of us would love to quit our day job so we could focus more time on our own personal hobby projects. But it’s a luxery we just don’t have. And if we all tried to do it, then none of us would have money or electricity.
And again, I will point out that this was a very bad bet to risk your financial stability on anyway. Since the world does not need, and probably doesn’t even want, yet another Linux distribution.
Edited 2006-07-31 02:44
I feel what you’re doing is great.
“I need to raise some money this week in order to have electric restored and cover some expense”
What are your expenses?
How long will the money last?
What is the plan for cash flow?
I can donate what I can, if the plan is coherent. jupiterproject (at) mail (dot) google (dot) com
> He did have a job; he left it so that he could
> work full time on Symphony. If you had read the
> article (rather short), you would have known this.
So what? It’s his own fault for quitting a secure job to work full time on a hobby programming project. I’m sorry. But I have a hard time finding a lot of sympathy for people who do this.
After all, if we all quit our day jobs so we could work full time on our own personal hobby projects (which I’m sure most of us would love to have a lot more time to work on) then none of would have any money or electricity now would we?
The world simply does not need (and probably doesn’t even want) yet another Linux distribution. There’s already too many of them. So this should have been obvious that it was a very poor venture to risk your financial stability over by quitting your real job.
Edited 2006-07-31 02:41
I agree 100%. What kind of person quits his job without first planning to ensure his financial security ? First rule of adulthood : make sure you can provide for yourself and your family.
Now there are legitimate ways you can get into financial trouble like large medical bills or getting fired but even then wouldn’t you look into getting help from friends, family or the government before begging money from strangers ?
Obligatory Simpsons quote :
Marge: But you’re going to annoy thousands of people just to make a few measly dollars. It’s nothing but panhandling.
Homer: Tele-panhandling honey.
I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I’M READING. DUDE, HUMANS LIKE YOU SHOULD LET THEIR EYES TO PHISICALLY BLIND PEOPLE, SINCE YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE THEM. IF YOU TOOK A LITTLE TIME TO READ HOW THE STORY WENT, YOU’D REALISE THAT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING IS ABSOLUTELLY STUPID.
FIRST, HE WAS PRACTICALLY FIRED.
SECOND, SYMPHONY OS IS NOT ANOTHER LINUX DISTRO. IS A PROJECT THAT WIPES ITS ASS WITH ANY OTHER ‘INNOVATIVE’ DISTROS OUR THERE. AND ONE ORIGINAL CONCEPT EVEN SOME GNOME ARTISTS ARE TRYING TO ‘EMULATE’
THIRD, SHUT THE F*** UP. DON’T WANT TO DONATE, DON’T DONATE. NOBODY PULLED A GUN OVER YOUR HEAD.
“I have really big plans for symphony in the near future that will hopefully blow some larger distros out of the water.”
Sure.
Like we need another os.
I count thousands of operating systems.
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Software/Operating_Syst…
You need to get a job.
If your OS is so damn special then investors would jump on board. I don’t see any.
Now if you OS would work better than Xwindows – hardward compatibility , then I would be interested in donating.
I count about about twenty six on the list you just provided, half of which are even close to the level of functionality that Symphony OS has.
Like we need another troll. I’ve seen millions of them. You need to stop posting irrelevant things.
And another thing, there have been many worth while projects that didn’t get financial backing for a long time. It’s not that it’s not special, it’s just not profitable. You shouldn’t put both together in the same column, because the world is not just about money.
> because the world is not just about money.
Funny, but isn’t this thread about the m o n e y he needs to continue…
Anyway, I agree with Simba 100%
David,
Jason Spisak is right here. I didn’t know Ryan was in dire straights (not the band unfortunately). To be frank, he hasn’t answered my emails since 6/14 when I gave im a lead on a web job. I’ve asked how he was doing after the initial “contracting isn’t gong as well as I’d hoped” post on the Symphony site, but got no reply. I’d love to help him. I just sent you an email Ryan, so if you have Net access, please reply. You know I’m not much of a forum guy. Or Skype me, or call my cell, or send up a hot air balloon!
Jason
Jason, mail me, [email protected].
I spearheaded this idea, so I can fill you in more. Ryan doesn’t have dedicated internet at the moment.
I’ve checked out SymphonyOS right through it’s dev. process and I really can’t see anything magical or even new about it’s desktop metaphor.
SymphonyOS Desktop = MS Active Desktop + Widgets + StarDock Object Desktop + hot corners. WOW that’s really exciting……… not.
Ten years ago maybe, but not now. We’ve already moved on, so should Ryan. Hell desktop’s are all going in approximatly the same direction, hot corners are already used extensively in MacOS (Exposé) and in Gnome Compiz.
Why pay Ryan to reinvent the wheel? He needs to put his begging bowl away and seek employment which will pay for his fantasies.
thingi
Edited 2006-07-31 10:14
I think begging bowl is the wrong metaphor. The appropriate comparison IMO is to a street entertainer – he provides a service with no obligation, you decide whether its worth your money.
Throughout history there have been those who worked on new inventions, and personal cost to themselves, and often dependant on the gratitude of others, which while considered by many to be useless or impractical at the time, later provided a contribution to society. At the same time, there are many similar inventions that did prove to be relatively useless and fell by the wayside. Those who believe SymphonyOS is the former should contribute. Those who believe it’s the latter should keep their disparaging remarks about Ryan’s request for help to themselves.
> Throughout history there have been those who worked
> on new inventions
And most of them kept their day jobs so they could support themselves while working on their new inventions.
The Wright Brothers ran a bicycle repair shop while they tried to figure out to get heavier then air flight to work, for example.
Let’s get something straight – he is working, he is running a consultancy business as well.
> Let’s get something straight – he is working, he
> is running a consultancy business as well.
Well, last time I checked, I’m not a bank. And I am not in the business of bailing other failed businesses out financial trouble. So this doesn’t really change anything.
He needs to see a bank and get a small business loan.
I can’t make out whether Ryan quit his job or lost it. So which is it? Whichever, it doesn’t justify the festival of hostility. A helping hand to someone in trouble doesn’t need a lot of justification.
Ryan, it’s alright to work on Symphony while you’re out of work, but you want to put the right amount of emphasis on survival. Symphony may be wonderful, but it won’t happen if the basics aren’t taken care of. Even if your goal is community support so you can work on it full time, you still need a plan. More so ’cause you need a lot of people to buy into the idea. You don’t manage a long-term project the same way you do a short-term emergency… unless you’re a big company with money to burn; they do it all the time.
Did ‘Labor Day’ come early this year? This sounds like a pitch from “The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.” Not to knock Jerry Lewis – he’s a wonderfully talented and has used his fame and influence to do great things with this annual event.
However, I will not donate money to any venture that involves Jason Spisak. I had dealings with him at both Lycoris and Element Computers and wish to never do business with him again; in any form.
If Ryan dumps Spisak, I’d probably donate money. If Spisak stays, then there’s no reason for me to donate.
Whether Ryan did was wrong or not, it’s out of question. It’s not being discussed.
The fact that you fail in considering this thing irrelevant is as bad as myself failing in recognizing you as human beings.
We don’t need marketing here. Nor publicity stunts. If you check the page some fellow sites are giving rewards for people who donate certain ammounts. So someone else knows Ryan better than you.
Use your imagination. No corporation funds OSS software. Period. If it does, check it again, you might found 4 letters: EULA (ha ha, not funny)
/sarcasm/ And don’t worry. I work for SymphonyOS and won’t have vacations payed because you couldn’t afford to donate enough //sarcasm//