Raising separate fund for a complete redesign in Feature Requests

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#20 Aug 27 2010, 11:55 am
Masschaos100 wrote:
so basically you want there to be BYOND, but you also want there to be something somewhat like a BYOND pro?

No, if I understand this correctly, they want BYOND as-is, but then they want to try to get a more modern version of BYOND, which conforms to more common programming practices, but they want to try to get others to handle it for the time being.
#21 Aug 27 2010, 2:34 pm
I read this post as sort of tongue-in-cheek, making light of some of the huge feature requests (like a client-side processing language) that are made so flippantly by users without considering the work involved.

If this is a serious request, with limited funding, this project would take years and would more than likely not get off the ground. Now if some investor were to see potential in the idea and put a team around it, it could be done. But there's really no reason it has to be done within BYOND.

Most people fail to understand just how big this project is. Even if it were coded well, it would still be huge. Maintaining the existing system is a big job, not even counting any new feature work. Now perhaps this means we are doomed to mediocrity, but I happen to believe that what we have right now can be successful with added exposure. As such, much of our efforts are on making BYOND more accessible to the masses. And they will have the last word.
#22 Aug 29 2010, 9:13 am
Tom wrote:
If this is a serious request

It is, or rather was indeed. I see little BYOND could lose by asking, or actually even raising a fund, other than failing to generate enough money, in which case nothing happened at all.


Tom wrote:
with limited funding, this project would take years

Are you at a hurry? If this is, as I mentioned, a side project that takes next to non of the resources that are available right now, then it shouldn't matter if it takes two or five years. Even better yet, with this in progress any demanding feature request that is denied with the common 'can't do this because of the source code/Windows API' can be directed to that side project and kindly asked to donate, if they really want to see this become reality. Two birds, one stone and hardly any drawback, or at least non that I'd be aware.


Tom wrote:
But there's really no reason it has to be done within BYOND.

Well, some of us like BYOND and you have evidently gathered very valuable experience over the years. So, while there might be no reason to take this venture under the flag of BYOND, there certainly isn't any reason as to not do so either, or is there? On the opposite side, there are some reasons why this would be a lot more likely to succeed with BYOND.


Tom wrote:
Maintaining the existing system is a big job, not even counting any new feature work.

Which is why I tried to emphasis that this would be completely, totally, utterly and fundamentally a side project, so that it would not effect the current work on BYOND at all, other than granting a possible 'in the distant future' perspective that we do not have now.


Tom wrote:
And they will have the last word.

Which was exactly what I was requesting. Asking the customer base as a first step and evaluating possible actions from there on.
#23 Aug 29 2010, 5:47 pm
it shouldn't matter if it takes two or five years

It's not going to be 2-5 years, it'll be more like 25 years.
#24 Aug 29 2010, 9:53 pm
Forum_account wrote:
If Teka, at that time, had contributed ~$5000 and Tiberath was 9th on the contributions list with ~$700, I estimated the total amount of all contributions at $10,000. Looking at it again that might be a bit low, but I wouldn't put the total much over $20,000.

Not everyone who buys a membership is on the contributors list- that's only for people who explicitly donate or gift a membership. I'm certain BYOND has made more than $20,000 in the five plus years they've been pushing memberships. Years ago (I want to say within the first year of Members being introduced) there was a way to list every BYOND member through the search, and I believe at that time (pre-Teka, by the way), assuming each had only purchased a single membership, and back when memberships cost only $15, I had calculated BYOND pulled in about $13,000 gross.


I'm also curious what U.S. programmers you know that make $166 / hr.
#25 Aug 30 2010, 12:38 pm
I may not have been very generous in estimating the total at $20,000 but I'm generous in assuming that the money taken in is pure profit and that a separate "BYOND re-write" fund would attract the same amount in donations. However much money you assume BYOND takes in each year, the numbers will never work out well for this fund.

If BYOND takes in $30,000 every 5 years that's $6000 a year. This is enough to afford 40 hours of a freelancer's time (at $150/hour) each year. If the complete re-write takes 3-6 months to develop it would take 13-26 years to save up the money to fund it. With harsher assumptions ($4000/year taken in and $200/hour for a freelancer) it would take 26-52 years to save up the money.

I'm also curious what U.S. programmers you know that make $166 / hr.

I never said they make $166/hour, I said they charge $166/hour. Freelancers have to pay all of their own expenses (computer, internet, electricity, office, travel, health insurance, etc.) out of pocket. If a freelancer wants to make $50/hour in profit they'll have to charge about three times that much for their time.

$150/hour is a reasonable rate by today's standards (if anything it's a little low for this type of work). This also assumes that if Tom saves up the money to hire a freelancer that he'll be able to find someone in 2025 who will work for a 2010 wage.
#26 Aug 30 2010, 12:41 pm
Forum_account wrote:
I never said they make $166/hour, I said they charge $166/hour. Freelancers have to pay all of their own expenses (computer, internet, electricity, office, travel, health insurance, etc.) out of pocket. If a freelancer wants to make $50/hour in profit they'll have to charge about three times that much for their time.

Freelancers like that also tend to work on very small projects, that most of the time probably don't even take out a whole hour of time. Its much more likely they get some simple job that they make $20 dollars on, than getting some super complex job that would take months or even years on end to complete.
#27 Aug 30 2010, 1:11 pm
There are only two ways to accomplish this project.

1) Come up with a business model that looks appealing, get angel funding (between $250K-$500K) and hire a staff of programmers to do the port. It wouldn't be nearly as much work as the initial conception of BYOND since the design is more straightforward and there is a lot more third-party help these days, but the project is still massive. Also, the thing has to make money and that may require significant technical leaps.

2) Bootstrap it. Find people willing to work for peanuts or "stock" and realize they will flake. This will most likely not succeed. AFAIK, a few people have tried in the past to recreate BYOND in various incarnations before they realized that it is not so much fun as it sounds.

I love the idea of rewriting the system, knowing what I do now, not having to deal with backwards-compatibility and the existing community, etc. But I don't love what it represents, which is a lot of work with a high likelyhood of never making much money. As such I would only get involved if it were option #1, and only then under certain conditions.

That said, for all the talk of the limitations of the current BYOND, it is still surviving and (based on some of the comments here) doing a lot better financially than you think.
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