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  • Pursuing Open Source Full-Time Development

kaktuspalme But I'm a little surprised that you would work full time for just 800€.

After taxes and YEL (self-employed persons) insurance it's a fair bit less than what I'd probably need, but I'd rather make less but work on open source software, with contributions coming from Patrons, than not being able to work full-time on open source. Plus I'm married and the wife is quite supportive of my move to working on open source (and more on Solus) full-time when funding allows.

Will I be happy if we get over the 800€ mark? Heck yea. But I wanted to set some realistic goals first.

I imagine I'll be working closer to full-time even before we hit that mark (I want to show Patrons and potential Patrons that I mean business when it comes to delivering code), but I need to finish up some old contract work before I can do that 🙂

    JoshStrobl On top of that, if we want to keep Solus being updated and have the features we would like to see, sponsoring you for working on it full time is the best way we could 🙂

      7 days later

      JoshStrobl

      Is it easy for you to check to see whether someone's Patreon application has been processed? I signed up a while ago, as WetGeek, and have not seen anything to indicate that I'm a patron. As far as I can tell, there's been no charge against my credit card.

      Does this initial process just take a while? If so, I can certainly be patient, but if something went wrong, I want to try signing up again.

          WetGeek It should be instant and I have it set up to charge up-front (back when Solus had a Patreon, we had issues with people signing up, checking things, then cancelling before the payment period, so I charge upfront to avoid that). I checked and I'm not seeing it as declined, cancelled, or active (assuming you used the same email as the one associated with your forum account), so maybe the request didn't go through?

              JoshStrobl

              Thanks for checking. I'll try signing up again. I'm assuming that will cause some kind of an error if my user name is already present.

                JoshStrobl

                It's possible that I set it up originally using PayPal. This time I was dressed (vs. in my robe), so I had my wallet handy, and used a credit card instead. It appeared to have worked.

                    What is the history of the name? Why "Koto"?

                    Is this an early prototype or working alpha?

                      Solarmass What is the history of the name? Why "Koto"?

                      Copy / pasting from an answer I gave to a Patron 😛

                      Koto is the name of a "Japanese half-tube zither instrument" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koto_(instrument)

                      I got hooked on the Koto after watching

                      Is this an early prototype or working alpha?

                      Neither. It's a mockup. Way too early for functional prototypes. Removed image reference though. Want folks to at the very least click on my blog post and read it 😉

                          JoshStrobl Good job. I've always been a fan of zithers and hammer dulcimers. Had not heard of a koto, though.

                            @JoshStrobl

                            Hi Josh,

                            First of all, best wishes on your attempt to go exclusive on open source development. If Solus is anything to go by, you can only do great (thanks for your work on Solus by the way).

                            Since I cannot figure out how to pm you, I'll leave things here. I would very much like to give back a few euros, but I would rather not do it on a monthly basis. From what little I know, Patreon only allows such regular payments. Care to share a way for me to transfer some money (not as much as I would like to unfortunately...) in a single instalment?

                            If I take a few days to answer its just because I don't check the forum very often.

                              computerilliterate Hey there! First off, thank you for the kind words, they mean a lot. Patreon is indeed intended for regular, monthly transactions. In terms of "irregular" payments and without exposing the email for my PayPal to the entire interwebs, my Twitch account has a link that points to Streamlabs, which accepts fiat and sends it to PayPal. If you are tight on money, it would mean more if you just come to my Twitch with some beer in your hand, use the Streamlabs bot to gamble Baby Yodas (my Streamlabs channel points) and give me some crap, but you do what you want! 😛

                                  JoshStrobl

                                  Hi Josh,

                                  Some beer should have arrived through streamlabs (at least I hope so... I had never used the platform before). Keep up the good work and thanks.

                                      Okay, just found my post was deleted. It surely was too long...

                                      Will still consider to contribute. My work machine just runs perfectly and the 10 years old machine of my wife also runs like a new one again.
                                      I am very excited so far...