Ideas to get more than 25 USD per month

[Gilles LAMIRAL <gilles dot lamiral at laposte dot net>]

Hello all,

The last Stefan's remark makes me develop general business
questions with free, open and gratis software.

> HTH, imapsync made the migration (for which we spend top Euros for hired
> external partners - which failed royally) a - lets say - walk. And:
> imapsync was only the personal "Plan B". Great piece of software!

Thanks! (again).

Maybe I should add an advice to professional users:
Consider the time or money imapsync made your company
gain among all other solutions. Divide this gain
by 2 or 4 or 8, depending on your mood.
Then send me the result by cash, paypal or books,
I deserve it. Really? Yes.

Why?

Even if I receive books and little paypal since February 2003
(I'm happy with all those presents) the mean return is 25 USD per month.
It doesn't reflect all the time I spend maintaining this software
and supporting its users.

A pole: how long do you have to work to gain 25 USD?

In France the smallest salary is 10 USD per hour (it's called SMIC).
Nobody gains less in a normal legal work. In exchange of 25 USD the
poorest French worker will accept to work only 2 hours per month,
all things included.
My normal professional rate is 111 USD per hour and it should let me
work no more than 14 minutes par month on imapsync, including
support on this list. This is the time for a small email per month.

I can't expand my free time but I can include a part of my professional
time to improve and maintain imapsync.

So I have question to you, users: what could make you more generous
with free software developers? (I know several readers had already
contributed with books, money, patches,work etc.)

Ideas:
- An official call for donation on the web site (like wikipedia) or openbsd.
- Google adsence to get money from elsewhere.
- Commercial imap transfer from a web site using imapsync.
- The message you're reading :-)
- All of the previous ideas.
- ?

Other normal ideas in our normal business world:
- Stop worldwide publishing of new releases before adequate gain.
- Converting imapsync licence to proprietary licence to easyly
  send copies against money.

Thanks in advance for you reply.

PS: we are 68 subscribed on this emailing list.

--
Au revoir,                               02 99 64 31 77
Gilles Lamiral. France, Chavagne (35310) 06 20 79 76 06