[Theforum] community vs. corporations (was: funding options)

[Lachlan Cannon]

Marlene Bruce said:
> I agree. Creating a little bit of a barrier will help determine who
> really finds having meo useful.

As long as it's not too much of a barrier.

> Of course we can't ask for taxes, but we can ask for financial
> support in other ways. One is to ask people to contribute what they
> *can* for meo space. I'm just throwing ideas out here, but perhaps the
> thing to do is not to set a gift amount, but to *suggest* a gift amount
> (starting at something really low). Perhaps we can require
> that people give *something* in order to partake in the meo service,
> whatever they can afford according to their economic situation? I
> dunno...

I like this idea, but... I have barely any money (no job). I also have no
way of actually making a payment apart from mailing money over, which is of
course, hardly practical. To make up for this I try to contribute as much as
I can to evolt.org... I don't know how many other people there are with
similar situations, but I believe we still need to support learners -
especially since they'll be the next generation keeping evolt going. If we
do go ahead with this plan, I believe we need to have some sort of patronage
program, where someone unable currently to pay, asks for someones patronage,
and can point to what they've done for evolt, for people to judge whether or
not they feel that person is worth being a patron for.

> I don't currently see any way to keep meo free. I'd like to be wrong,
> but it's either get funding from the community or get it from
> corporations.

One other idea, I had wrt to meo, is driving people towards the affiliate
program. Eg, on the meo info page where it is stated that evolt is a
developement area only, have something saying 'if you do need a production
server, evolt.org recommends the following affiliates(link to affiliates
page). these people not only offer great service, but when you sign up for
them and mention evolt as your referrer, they give us a 10% kickback too).
Or something like that.

Lach
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