Tag Archives: python

Mailpile

In early 2013, Geary asked for $100,000 to build a mail client and stalled. Six months later, Mailpile did the same and the world could hardly hand over money fast enough. The difference? Edward Snowden.

…OK, there are a few other differences. Like Geary, Mailpile promised a Gmail-ish sleek design with fast search. While Geary is a GNOME app (which is not necessarily an exciting prospect for Windows or Apple users), Mailpile is a web-based client.

The Mailpile team of 3 is based in Iceland. Their fun campaign certainly struck a chord, as they reached their target well before deadline. During their campaign mail host Lavabit shut down rather than comply with a request to turn over their private security keys to the FBI.  They had so much money pouring in that Paypal froze their account. Undoubtedly the extra coverage from that event didn’t hurt, either. As well as hundreds of individuals, Mailpile won support from many companies as well.

From the start the Mailpile team had their eyes turned towards the long-term. Donating $23 or more made one a member of the Mailpile community. These members

get to have a say in the long term direction of the project. When we aren’t sure what features to work on next or need to make some other major decision, we will seek input from the Mailpile Community…. This is the Mailpile business model. As long as members of our community are willing to fund development (we will ask you to renew your membership in a years’ time), we will dedicate ourselves to Mailpile and build the secure web-mail client you want.

Summary

  • Campaign: Indiegogo
  • Campaign date: 2013-09-10
  • Campaign status: successful
  • Campaign backers: 3639
  • Campaign raised: US$163,192 of 100,000
  • Project type: prototype
  • Project license: AGPL, Apache

Outcomes

Their website lists the current status of development of various features. Their roadmap written shortly after the close of the campaign listed January 2014 as the goal for an “alpha release”. Their alpha release was launched on February 1 at FOSDEM (although it still requires installing from source) and on their website have hosted a demo.

Commentary

Cobbler

A small-scale campaign to purchase hardware for a project cut loose by Red Hat.

From the campaign, by James Cammarata, the new project lead:

Created in 2007 by Michael DeHaan, Cobbler is a Linux installation server that allows for rapid setup of network installation environments. It glues together and automates many associated Linux tasks […] Cobbler was originally a Fedora/Red Hat sponsored project, and is currently a key part of the Red Hat Satellite/Spacewalk project. Since March of 2012, the project leadership has changed and it is no longer receiving direct support from Red Hat in terms of money or development contributions.

Summary

  • Campaign: Indiegogo
  • Campaign date: 2012-12
  • Campaign status: successful
  • Campaign backers: 27
  • Campaign raised: US$5776 of 4000
  • Project type: existing
  • Project license: GPL

Outcomes

Seems like hardware was purchased, so this can probably be counted as a success.

Commentary

  • Shoes for the Cobbler’s kids – blog post from a VP at Eucalyptus Systems, announcing they would match donations dollar for dollar during the Indiegogo campaign.

Mediagoblin

MediaGoblin is a “free software media publishing platform”, a free alternative to many popular sites: YouTube (video), Flickr (photos), SoundCloud (audio) and the like. It aims to support truly decentralized publishing and sharing. It was borne from a Free Software Foundation meeting in 2008, recognising the lack of response in the free software space to popular commercial web-based media hosting and sharing sites. Minor releases were made up until October 2012 when the crowdfunding campaign began. There was a stated aim to reach v1.0 by the end of the campaign-funded development period.

The campaign reached over 70% of its goal amount, but as the campaign did not follow the “threshold pledge” model of Kickstarter, it has still enabled significant work to be completed. Chris Webber, the main developer, chose to work on MediaGoblin full time for a year (as was the aim of the original target). Webber previously worked as a software engineer at Creative Commons.

Summary

  • Campaign: Independent (FSF)
  • Campaign date: 2012-11
  • Campaign status: partially successful
  • Campaign backers: ?
  • Campaign raised: US$45198 of 60000
  • Project type: existing
  • Project license: AGPL

Outcomes

Since the fundraiser ended, as of January 2014,  5 major versions of the software have been released. Code is hosted at Gitorious. Releases have added support for 3D models, documents, specifying media file licenses, media file gelocation, and improved plugin architecture. Development of an Android app has also begun. The project hosted several interns as part of Google Summer of Code / GNOME Outreach Program for Women in the middle of 2013.

Commentary

Schema migrations for Django

Django is the go-to Python web framework, with South a plugin for Schema migration. This campaign was to put the next generation of schema migrations directly in Django core, essentially a rewrite of South. It was funded within a matter of hours. The campaigner is a Django core committer, and the original author and principal maintainer of South.

Summary

  • Campaign: Kickstarter
  • Campaign date: 2013-05
  • Campaign status: successful
  • Campaign backers: 507
  • Campaign raised: £17952 of goal 2500
  • Project type: existing
  • Project license: BSD

Outcomes

TBC

Commentary

By the campaign author: