Very cool... I think I remember seeing this concept discussed on Slashdot a few years back.
Two of the biggest problems in software development are - the client gives incomplete or wrong requirements, or the programmer doesn't implement them correctly. How are you going to keep everyone happy when the programmer decides the software is deliverable, but the client(s) disagree?
Cheers for the feedback. Good questions ... spec disagreement is one of the things we're mulling over.
Currently it's the pledgers (the "clients") who have the vote on whether the releases are any good, or whether or not they're according to spec. But we've got in mind an agreements system for spec arguments like this. For later -- for now we're going to keep a close eye on things and see how they go.
SHOULD explain exactly who owns what when software is made. Do the pledgers have any ownership? Just the coders? Do you force coders to use GPL? I'm sure you explain this somewhere, but it needs to be more clear, and I'm not going to do a lot of research...
Anyway. More importantly...Software, as soon as you leave the YC forcefield [1], is extremely expensive to produce. My company's tiny projects are billed in the upper 6-figure range. Are you going to get anyone "pledging" USD 750,000 for anything non-trivial?
[1] Remember that the 15,000 dollars or whatever YC gives people is just a token, maybe just a legal formality, to ensure their status as "investors". What they really give is exposure and advice and community. If you can get people pledging 15K, it still isn't enough.
Congratulations. I'm paying close attention and hope things go well for you guys. I'll be promoting this at the earliest opportunity.
Couple things I noticed:
1. It's not clear what's in it for microPledge. You should be open about the fact that you're a business and not an open source lovefest organization.
2. Those JPEGs on main page should be replaced with GIF/PNG. The artifacts are nasty.
3. Might want to change the humorous text on "I agree" checkbox to just say "I consent to the agreement" otherwise you're possibly weakening your legal protection.
Also, you might want to monitor/search some mailing lists and _very_ tactfully suggest microPledge as a solution to "we don't have time to do that feature now/its not a priority" situations.
Thanks for that. Problem: we're both an open source love-fest organisation and a business. :-)
From our help: "microPledge has intentionally arranged the fee structure to encourage free software. If you are willing to give something away, then so are we." -- http://micropledge.com/help/funding#licenses
Funny about the main page JPEGs (we did that for size, but looks like we might have to change back). On my screen I can't see any artifacts, but on some people's, yeah, they're quite bad.
As a general rule, make non-natural textures into png and natural textures into jpg. Natural means a real picture, like a face, a complicated screen-shot, or your office. Unnatural is something like a with simpler colors and flat textures.
A screenshot of a webpage has potential artifacts in shrunken fonts when stored in jpeg.
You need to find some way of seeding the current projects. The site looks baron as is. Perhaps you can pledge on a few projects that you could use internally.
Yeah, true. We've done some of that, and it looks like our users are slowly starting to do the same. It's up to you guys now: http://micropledge.com/pledge :-)
Good to hear the site looks like a British nobleman as is. ;-)
Two of the biggest problems in software development are - the client gives incomplete or wrong requirements, or the programmer doesn't implement them correctly. How are you going to keep everyone happy when the programmer decides the software is deliverable, but the client(s) disagree?