Bon wrote:
I really just want them to change it a bit, you know hope? Hope != pointless whining. Hope for world peace and the abolishment of poverty, or something. Everyone would appreciate it more. | |
Right, the majority of earnings goes to the server costs, maybe one day we'll make enough money to buy Dan back from his evil job!
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Elation wrote:
The BYOND staff are not evil. They are not making money for themselves. Actually, they are keeping a portion of it. About 30%, I think it was. But that's still not evil. Elation wrote: Bon wrote: Then it's a good thing he was voicing a thought and not whining pointlessly. Hope for world peace and the abolishment of poverty, or something. Everyone would appreciate it more. Peace is not necessarily a good thing, as it depends on what causes the peace. Complete tyranny by the government, if done properly, could bring about peace in a bad way. And welfare, that reduces poverty illegally. Anyway, back to the point at hand... If much more money is made than is needed, then it very well would be a good idea to change some things. There is no need to have such a large amount of surplus hanging around that you will never use it all. And back completely on topic... Even if only a tenth of the community donated you could have $2000 right there. So my guess would be in the $2,000-5,000 range. | |
Loduwijk wrote:
And welfare, that reduces poverty illegally. Welfare is illegal now? Does that mean I should turn myself in? Anyway, back to the point at hand... If I was in charge of it, I'd keep at least some of it in the bank in case the revenue stream dries up. I can certainly imagine some of the restrictions being lessened or changed over time, though; BYOND staff are very generous when they can afford to be. =) | |
Sgeo wrote:
They really need the money after providing BYOND for free for so long I'm not sure how sarcasm comes into play here; that's a pretty true statement. They might need the money, but if they made BYOND open-source in the first place, it wouldn't be a problem because other servers might be used. See http://www.jabber.org for an example of what I mean by "other servers can be used" You seem to have a pretty badly distorted idea of what open source is or how it works, or even that it works. Most of the time that isn't the case. Open source projects tend to stall out badly; see Apache's FOP to see what I mean--part of a huge open-source community that just can't get its ducks in a row. Open source also doesn't mean we'd have multiple hubs. In fact the entire design of BYOND operates around a single hub principle, and no form of key registration and other required features could be properly implemented under a multi-hub model. Moreover, the code to BYOND is arcane. There are large swaths of code that only Dan understands, and many of these are so interconnected with other parts of code that open source would be entirely useless. It's just not gonna happen, and for lots of good reasons. Fortunately the idea that open source would magically solve hub maintenance issues is ludicrous, so this doesn't matter much. Lummox JR | |
I've given up on trying to make a point on not liking this new one. Byond will never go back to how it was but hopefully some changes can be made after the money accumulates.
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Actully I am on both sides here.
I think, a few thigns need to change in the membership, but dont flame me, I already bought a year and donated another $5.00. I mean, ok, its no $200, or even $2,000.00 but dont try and say my money is worthless. Byond needs our support, and byond needs a face lift. Another thing is, I feel that making it open source could be a good thing here. It just seems alot of you are just bull headed and set in your way. Which isnt a bad thing really. In the end it come to the point that it belongs to Dan and Tom (And maybe someone else?) its theirs, and they will do with it what they please. And no amount of begging will help that. | |
Shades wrote:
Another thing is, I feel that making it open source could be a good thing here. As explained in [link] and in numerous other posts, this isn't at all desirable, let alone possible, and it would never have any kind of positive impact of the sort people seem to think open source magically bestows. Lummox JR | |
I never said it would magically bestow anything, but we also dont know exactly what would happen until it was done either.
People can voice their opinions on it how much they want, but just because someone thinks another person wouldnt understand how the byond source works dosent nessesscarly make it so. Look, I am not arguing about it, its like two sides of a coin, and I am not going to sit here and try to demand or argue for the sake of the open source, because I already assume that its never going to happen. If it hasnt happened in, what, 5+ years, why would it happen now? | |
Bon wrote:
I've given up on trying to make a point on not liking this new one. Great! But seriously, if you do think of suggestions for improving BYOND, and especially for ways to benefit members while perhaps also giving some good things to non-members, please do so. Byond will never go back to how it was but hopefully some changes can be made after the money accumulates. Well, don't expect backpedaling on any changes due to accumulating memberships because that's not gonna happen. At most we're looking at making the changes as workable as possible right off the bat, so we can lock into a new system. One thing we're looking at are ways of changing "friends not listed in non-member pagers" so it's a little more accessible than we first envisioned it; it may be that that needs some adjusting, and we'll find that out soon. You also may have noticed that now members can choose to accept pages from anyone, meaning their non-member friends can page them. These are a few adjustments we made, but we don't intend on just going back to the old way on anything once a certain threshold of members is reached; it would rather defeat the purpose. And really, people, to everyone saying "Well I hope they make enough money so everything can be free again," welcome back to reality (and for some of you, welcome to it for the first time). That's not gonna happen, and for a lot more reasons than money. Non-members sending pages to absolutely anyone will never again be possible, and good riddance. This was a huge admin headache and caused no end of grief to the community. However, since they can respond to member pages in a reasonable fashion and can send to members who allow pages from anyone, the soul of the pager remains very much intact. Cleansed even, you might say. Lummox JR | |
Shades wrote:
I never said it would magically bestow anything, but we also dont know exactly what would happen until it was done either. What would happen would be nothing much. People would make and compile their own versions of BYOND with little tweaks incompatible with anyone else's, then they'd go nuts trying to set up their own hubs (which would fail miserably because the process is very complicated), and the alternate hubs would of course bring out hidden bugs that couldn't be fixed without Dan, as well as problems of people not knowing which hub to use. People can voice their opinions on it how much they want, but just because someone thinks another person wouldnt understand how the byond source works dosent nessesscarly make it so. In this case yes, it really does; having seen the source I'm in a very good position to say that it won't be understood. The BYOND source is very complex. A few spots are much easier, which is why I started with low-hanging fruit like list/Swap() and the like. Things like network communication, and some basic features built into the language, are so interconnected as to defy understanding. Lummox JR | |
Not really. All the money will go to the server and compensating for when they take time off work to improve BYOND.
The BYOND staff are not evil. They are not making money for themselves.