I like TiagoTiago 's idea .
may be even decide which developer get what percentage of the funds by having monthly votes instead of dividing equally by number of promoted packages , so developers with stuff in devel gets their share too .

There's not much point in trying to turn donations into a forced payment system. Anyone (privately) developing open software has to accept the fact that it is generally not done for money and people might or might not donate (most people don't). If you want money for your efforts, go for app stores and sell closed software or get a job in some software company.

The problem with a "fund" is that it's a nice idea but won't work in practice unless there is a large company contributing a serious amount of money into it. If it relies on private donators the amount of money available for developers will be insignificantly small when distributed between many projects.

I'm not voting since I haven't developed a maemo application.

But it seems like a "shared fund" becomes more unfair to developers whose applications are more popular.

The system now is uncoordinated and inefficient because there is no link between downloading an application via the repositories and getting an indication of the compensation scheme. The only link would be documentation/discussion, which is NOT found on a garage page, but typically on a t.m.o. page.

Since there is no rule to provide documentation anywhere at all, downloading an application and trying to make it work usually results in hitting several narrowly-focused t.m.o threads.

There needs to be a revision of guidelines for applications to:
1. provide a project page on t.m.o. for the application, with the first post (or two) kept updated with downloading and operating instructions
2. with the download information a donate link or indication of compensation method

The following posts in the thread can continue to be the fragmented, volatile information of the development trail which almost immediately become irrelevant, as long as the first post or two is kept current.

The garage pages are so stripped down to restrict function that their function is limited past most utility.

What might be nice addition to the fund idea is some way to donate a very small amount to each application I use.
Lets say we have a script that gets a list of all installed programs and sorts out the "indie" packages.
Now, I decide to donate $5 to development. I donate that to the fund, along with a list of applications generated by the script(Possibly even with usage information). The fund then gives each developer a share of that money.

Obviousky, lowever, the fund would keep each dev's money until it reached a certain level - like $10 - so that fees don't eat it all up.

This would allow someone to donate money to what they use without spending huge amounts, wasting lots in fees, or playing favorites.

the difference between unfixed vs suggested is a bit unclear; As I understand the unfixed does not give any suggestion towards what would be a "good" amount to donate so I chose voluntary suggested donation ("if this was in Ovi store it would be 7EUR, but donate whatever you feel like").

And as mentioned there is some thought/work going towards adding donation buttons to the maemo.org downloads pages (if the packager supplies the information needed).

Edit: and since there is Ovi store (yeah the procedures may suck, you want everyone to pay you fixed amount of money; jump through the hoops) and anyone with the skills can setup a separate repo (which is kinda bad due to fragmentation etc) for their paid SW anyway I suppose the discussion is for software that is not completely closed (though one can upload closed-source packages to extras too).

I whole heartedly agree with the above, and I have been just flabbergasted that developers do not already always do this when they announce a new application.

Instead users have to wade trough (sometimes) hundreds of posts to find what the current state of the application is and how to possibly compensate the developer for his hard work.

Rather than a direct conversion to financial rewards, what if we make a community 'shrine' to acknowledge our most favorite/productive/innovative developers in multiple categories?

This serves as a way publicly thank them and raise awareness of their services to the community. Then from this (raised) platform, we can setup the donation collection mechanism.

Developers: if you are writing non-commercial software then don't expect compensation (because you would most likely be disappointed). That is not to say you don't deserve compensation - it's just that if people aren't required to pay then most won't.

Users: if you donate to a software project then do so on the basis that you are donating for "the current state of the project" and not for "any planned future updates, features, bug fixes".

It's still, officially, on the maemo.org roadmap; but no movement is happening on it :-(

Well, that's what the above proposal is for. And, with things like FAPMan and the Community SSU (being able to change Application Manager), this could also be put more front & centre.

There's already such a rule and a mechanism, it's called maemo.org Downloads. Any software which makes it through the QA process gets there: http://maemo.org/downloads/ - that's your:

• home page for the app
• one-click install
• screenshots
• the current stable version number
• link to bug tracker
• rating system
• link to home page
• inclusion of any text the developer desires

TMO is not a content-management system, and an attempt to turn it into one for applications is a Bad Idea. And it's been a Bad Idea every single time it's been suggested.

I am completely for the principle of 'Release software to repositories; voluntary suggested donation'. However, in practice the method of attempting to give voluntary donations is far too difficult and time consuming.

When downloading from the app manager it is unclear if the developer is soliciting donations and how to pay the developer. If you download many applications trying to find this information out becomes time consuming to the point of giving up. Ideally there should be an option in the package manager to donate to the developers of the software in your list of downloads. This would be a big change and unlikely to be a short term fix.
Alternatively I would suggest a quick simple web page for the different apps seeking donations.

I did 'ask the council' about this a few days ago but so far no response.