[Q] Costs of Developing vs. Donations - General Questions and Answers

Do developers of custom roms recoup all their costs when accepting donations?
Or do they typically lose money and just do it for fun?
Thanks.

Generally, there aren't any costs of developing except for time (as the devices that they code for are the ones they own, or were donated to them). And if you're asking if donations cover the time that they spend on it, very very doubtful.

VERY doubtful
I think more time is spent reading about will it work on some other device or why it isnt like some other rom.

No it doesn't that's why we do it for the love....
Many a night spent in kitchen without even thinking about donations.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

tl,dr
they do it for fun, be grateful

Related

Ebay Roms and Developers work abused

Hi all,
I've posted about this trash before but now it is really annoying me.
We all do our work here for free and for the better good of the community and those who use these PDA's.
I am so sick of people abusing our work and selling it on Ebay without even a thank you let alone any form of re-imbursement for the hard work we do.
I know it's not piracy, and what we do here is pretty much open-source if you like, but this stuff is really getting on my nerves.
Everytime I go on Ebay and search for PDAs the same trash pops up, some idiot making a fast buck off the back of hard working Developers like us.
The guy is selling a Uni with Laurentius's and mine Rom on it and trying to make an extra £50- £70 for our hard work, since the Uni is normally going for between £160- £200 these days.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....ndexURL=4&photoDisplayType=2#ebayphotohosting
I have no idea what we can do about it, I am reporting him to Ebay and would be gratefull for the support of the community in doing the same with this guy and others like him.
It ruins this community and really winds me up to the point that I wonder if should even bother any more.
Cheers,
A very p....ssd off Beasty
I am more surprised that people actually paying to buy ROMs which are available for free. Beasty maybe you should be listing the ROMs since people don’t really want to hit the donation icon here. And I will give you a good feedback to get you started.
beast0898 said:
Hi all,
I've posted about this trash before but now it is really annoying me.
We all do our work here for free and for the better good of the community and those who use these PDA's.
I am so sick of people abusing our work and selling it on Ebay without even a thank you let alone any form of re-imbursement for the hard work we do.
I know it's not piracy, and what we do here is pretty much open-source if you like, but this stuff is really getting on my nerves.
Everytime I go on Ebay and search for PDAs the same trash pops up, some idiot making a fast buck off the back of hard working Developers like us.
The guy is selling a Uni with Laurentius's and mine Rom on it and trying to make an extra £50- £70 for our hard work, since the Uni is normally going for between £160- £200 these days.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....ndexURL=4&photoDisplayType=2#ebayphotohosting
I have no idea what we can do about it, I am reporting him to Ebay and would be gratefull for the support of the community in doing the same with this guy and others like him.
It ruins this community and really winds me up to the point that I wonder if should even bother any more.
MODS PLEASE STICKY THIS
Cheers,
A very p....ssd off Beasty
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't wish to sell them, and besides that it would be illegal to do so.
My point is that we do this for free and scum bags try to make money for nothing from others contributions to this community.
I know how stupid Microsoft will look if people start selling their modified ROMs. But I did discover one thing when you are pissed you do lose your sense of humor.
beast0898 said:
I don't wish to sell them, and besides that it would be illegal to do so.
My point is that we do this for free and scum bags try to make money for nothing from others contributions to this community.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes... a lot of time goes in cooking\developing rom's and we are offering this ROM's for free here. How would you feel if we stop doing this!
I have no good words for people who are selling our ROM's on Ebay.
I might have to think about that if you stop making ROM how will I feel? I think then I will have no good words for you. Just kidding I guess then I will be disappointed because I keep coming back to your ROMs and you don’t even appreciate that I go through all that trouble and flash your ROMs. A little bit of appreciation will be nice from you people. No, seriously I do appreciate all the time you spend her and then even let people criticize you. If I was you I would just say “MAKE YOUR OWN BLOODY ROMs IF YOU CAN DO a BETTER JOB”.
Laurentius26 said:
Yes... a lot of time goes in cooking\developing rom's and we are offering this ROM's for free here. How would you feel if we stop doing this!
I have no good words for people who are selling our ROM's on Ebay.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And I do appriciate you flash our ROM's my friend
Thank you!
Regards,
Leo
faraz.riaz said:
I might have to think about that if you stop making ROM how will I feel? I think then I will have no good words for you. Just kidding I guess then I will be disappointed because I keep coming back to your ROMs and you don’t even appreciate that I go through all that trouble and flash your ROMs. A little bit of appreciation will be nice from you people. No, seriously I do appreciate all the time you spend her and then even let people criticize you. If I was you I would just say “MAKE YOUR OWN BLOODY ROMs IF YOU CAN DO a BETTER JOB”.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Support
Hi Beasty,
I'm behind you guys 100% on this one, if you come up with a way we can all help then let us know. I guess this arse wipe is a member of this group, can we have him or them removed from it to start with. It might not be illegal to sell it on eBay, but it must be some kind of fraud. As a paramedic I am (when given permission) able to use a persons medical history to further my knowledge, but I've no right to sell it in a book on EBAY if you see my point!!!
Kind regards
Jay
THANK YOU
i would be very pissed off too if i'd work my butt off to get nothing some times not even a "thank you" and other motHer%$$·$% is getting the money for my hard-work. if anyone can come up with some good ideas to avoid this type of persons here in this wonderful comunity would be great (maybe get his IP address somehow and ban him/her for good)
i have no words for all you people that spend many hours cooking and developing, hours that maybe your wife, husband or kids would need or deserve but just think about the 1000s of happy faces we have everytime we flash you piece of artworks or all the countless hours we wait for a new ROM to come out or just the big smile we have in our faces everytime the flash is finished and we see the new ROM for the first time. Just think that he/she migth be making a few bucks, but you have the appreciation, respect, knowledge and the love of many (maybe thousands) of people every single day with every new ROM . To all this you may have notice that english is not my maiden language(im from mexico) but i do want to show you my respects, i wish i could donate but in the country i live...life is not easy and all i can do is say...... !!!!!GRACIAS!!!!!!
BEST REGARDS. Erik.
Although I do agree with Beast on this issue - I don't think anyone (other that a Developer) can really comment on it.
Consider, most developers for the Universal have been using my hosting - which I welcome them to do. However, not a single person who has downloaded a ROM from my hosting has donated a cent to me to help pay the hosting cost.
Don't get me wrong - I don't want the developers to pay (they're already contributing a huge amount to the community). But, when was the last time you (being a random forum member) have donated to a developer for their work or to me for my hosting? Truly, unless you have put something back into the community, you are being a hypocrite by posting in this thread!
Anyway, thats my 2 cents (Australian Cents ) on the issue - and I apologise to no one that I may have offended
So Disgusting
This is very disgusting if anyone is doing so........as a members of this community we should really stop this .This forum is for us and we should appriciate our developers for giving us such ROM's........which they develope by contributing their valuable time for us.
I really feel very sad about it.
Hi all,
I have no desire to make money from my work here, or demand donations for anything I contribute, all I request is the common decency from fellow human beings not to ruin this community by exploiting others.
TehPenguin does have a point though, his hosting does cost him money and adds great value to this community, the FTP Server and BugTracker are invaluable (when used correctly) and TehPenguin and this site could really use donations to help them keep running costs down.
TehPenguin said:
Although I do agree with Beast on this issue - I don't think anyone (other that a Developer) can really comment on it.
Consider, most developers for the Universal have been using my hosting - which I welcome them to do. However, not a single person who has downloaded a ROM from my hosting has donated a cent to me to help pay the hosting cost.
Don't get me wrong - I don't want the developers to pay (they're already contributing a huge amount to the community). But, when was the last time you (being a random forum member) have donated to a developer for their work or to me for my hosting? Truly, unless you have put something back into the community, you are being a hypocrite by posting in this thread!
Anyway, thats my 2 cents (Australian Cents ) on the issue - and I apologise to no one that I may have offended
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I feel so ashamed of myself that I have decided not to download any ROM from your domain for one week. Seriously, did people have a bad weekend because everyone seemed to be pissed off? I am disappointed that you called me a hypocrite because I have been accused of this before and I’m anxiously waiting for someone to come up with something new. Everyone whom posted in this thread will have to send a handsome amount of donation to the “hosting dude” starting with Beasty who started this thread. Honestly, I do agree people should pay a little back to help those who are trying to help others. I think even if everyone pays as little as US $1 it will make a huge difference. I am surprised myself people come up with so many ideas how to change the ROM (Whisper: Most of them are lame) and they are more like demanding. I really don’t get why developers put up with that and I told Beasty that why he’s apologetic.
I do agree that we should do a little something to help. So what you need me to do?
TehPenguin said:
Although I do agree with Beast on this issue - I don't think anyone (other that a Developer) can really comment on it.
Consider, most developers for the Universal have been using my hosting - which I welcome them to do. However, not a single person who has downloaded a ROM from my hosting has donated a cent to me to help pay the hosting cost.
Don't get me wrong - I don't want the developers to pay (they're already contributing a huge amount to the community). But, when was the last time you (being a random forum member) have donated to a developer for their work or to me for my hosting? Truly, unless you have put something back into the community, you are being a hypocrite by posting in this thread!
Anyway, thats my 2 cents (Australian Cents ) on the issue - and I apologise to no one that I may have offended
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why don't you guys make a solution
Hey beast,
Why don't you developer make a credits section in your roms that is listing your names and all your comments.
I'm not a developer, but let me give an idea, why don't you create a program, that makes a watermark comment on the todays screen, which makes it clear to everyone that this rom is free and nmt for sale, and calling everyone that purchase this rom to contact you guys through the xda-developers web site.
it is just an idea, and I'm sure that most of the guys here is supporting you and the other developers for the great work
TehPenguin said:
However, not a single person who has downloaded a ROM from my hosting has donated a cent to me to help pay the hosting cost.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive found the same when i set up htc-devs.com (when the ftp was wiped of m$ files)
TehPenguin said:
Don't get me wrong - I don't want the developers to pay (they're already contributing a huge amount to the community). But, when was the last time you (being a random forum member) have donated to a developer for their work or to me for my hosting? Truly, unless you have put something back into the community, you are being a hypocrite by posting in this thread!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I concur, In since i started developing my total donations are barely double digits (<£50) people think that things should be handed to them on a golden platter, and when they are not 100% to thier satisfaction that you shoudl put it right, immediately, but they would never consider donating
my 2p
I am not a developer too..or not considering me in that sort of group,because of the amount of time I spend in this (about 1-2hrs a week).
Just customized a Rom to my needs and I will be glad to share if someone wants it,freely!
Every person needs to find a good balance to Private life and Rom Developement,etc.. If this development is such time consuming,calm down..review your time!
Don't pretend donations (they are always appreciated but not to be Pretended or cast something up)
Development (and programming in general) in this forum are passions that we share together..
TehPenguin said:
Although I do agree with Beast on this issue - I don't think anyone (other that a Developer) can really comment on it.
Consider, most developers for the Universal have been using my hosting - which I welcome them to do. However, not a single person who has downloaded a ROM from my hosting has donated a cent to me to help pay the hosting cost.
Don't get me wrong - I don't want the developers to pay (they're already contributing a huge amount to the community). But, when was the last time you (being a random forum member) have donated to a developer for their work or to me for my hosting? Truly, unless you have put something back into the community, you are being a hypocrite by posting in this thread!
Anyway, that's my 2 cents (Australian Cents ) on the issue - and I apologise to no one that I may have offended
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think ANYONE is being a hypocrite on this thread, we are just supporting developers who have had their work abused and used by another party. I have the greatest admiration for the clever people who develop the amazing Rom's for our chosen PDA, without them our universals would now be an out of date device. I personally provide files and work to the LIMIT of my own abilities, and any rom I feel worth using, then I donate to the developer. I feel thats what this forum is all about. Yes I am guilty of not supporting ANY host of download sites, and was not aware that this puts you out of pocket till now. without the hosts support to this forum it would be useless but it is not unreasonable for people to express their OWN opinion.
Respectfully
Jay
responderman said:
I don't think ANYONE is being a hypocrite on this thread, we are just supporting developers who have had their work abused and used by another party. I have the greatest admiration for the clever people who develop the amazing Rom's for our chosen PDA, without them our universals would now be an out of date device. I personally provide files and work to the LIMIT of my own abilities, and any rom I feel worth using, then I donate to the developer. I feel thats what this forum is all about. Yes I am guilty of not supporting ANY host of download sites, and was not aware that this puts you out of pocket till now. without the hosts support to this forum it would be useless but it is not unreasonable for people to express their OWN opinion.
Respectfully
Jay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats a good point to note as well - Hosting cost me money, but it also costs the people who host this forum money. So, I wonder how many people have noticed the Donate link at the top of this page (near the Wiki link)...
Disagree with Beastie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I totally disagree with Beastie on this matter! If you take a look at the installed software on that Uni it has SPB Finance, Weather and Pocket Plus retailing at 70$ as well as a quite long list of other appz. More than that what we do here isn't fully legal either or at least moral. For example in our ROMs we include software that we do not have a licence or any right to use like MSVoiceCommand, MSOffice, HTC Stuff etc, etc, if you compare this to a PC it would be like buying a PC with Win98 then taking a copy(image) of a friend WinXP(with Office, and other apps) and loading it on your one. Do you thing this is right? And also if someone would do the same and sell this "New" PC complain about it. You develop for your own fun and hobby. If you decided to share something not very moral with others, don't complain when someone does something that is not fully moral by your judgement. Morality or legality of this matter is a subjective matter. And do understand the concept of open source. I'm coming from a Mozilla exdeveloper background. And Mozilla is used in numerous commercial applications with proper credits. You have no right to claim that someone used your work to make money on it, as you are using someone else work in your own interests (name, hobby, any reason). You have your reasons to make just what that guy did for his reasons(in his case money). One thief is judjung another!!! How moral is that??? Of course you do develop your own tools and enchacements, BUT on top of a STOLEN OS!!! Microsoft, HTC,etc invested money and time in their developers, designers, markeing depts. to bring this OS to life, and if they decide they don't want to give it for free it is their choice as a business model. You do not have the right to steal this OS tweak it and claim that it is YOUR and someone should pay you for this. Look a the whole picture not that just some guy used the ROM you dont own but tweaked it and claim it is yours.
PS. Last night i posted my 1st ever ROM on this forum wich is as vanilla as possible(for me), the reasons behind postin it here was exactly that. Anyone can download it and tweak it to his own use, or install new soft one it, new soft keybd, new media player, fast GPS soft etc, etc. I didn't own that OS, I took it of Thingonasping wich took it from someone else. You spend a some time and money in "developing" "your" ROMs, corporations spend billions on that, and someone comes along and steals it. Now that person do not have the need to upgrade his device anymore as "his" new OS will keep him happy for a while. How much damage do you do then to even HTC themselves who didn't sell another unit as their potential customer didn't buy it cos he's got his old device new features(without permision from legal developer).
PS. And how do you know or are so sure that he used "Your" ROM? Maybe he took your kitchen and compiled it, (wich in your view and interpretation), makes it "His" ROM now, isn't it?
I feel sorry for the poor sod who will buy this Universal:
1. As far as legality is concerned, any stolen goods doesn't pass the title of ownership to the buyer. Even though the buyer is unaware of this theft and he/she is innocent, the ownership title doesn't pass to him/her. A case in point about Spb software on the phone, which we are assuming installed on the phone illegally.
2. To add to this the poor sod's nightmare, he/she will be lumbered with Windows Mobile 6 with full of bugs. For sure it won't have video calling.
KOR!

[Q] Donations...

Guys, I've been flashing ROMS for about the last 10 months and I can't tell the dev's how appreciative I am for what they do since they are supporting my addiction of flashing. I know there are several people that work on the ROMS and I guess my question is does the money go to the team of people or just the person who published the ROM? I'm not trying to offend anyone and if this is one of those unspoken rules then please just tell me to shut up and close the thread. It's just something that peaked my curiosity.
Thanks,
It really depends on the dev/team you donate to. Usually its one person...
Just donate the money to charity in the name, Most devs I've talked to would you rather do that.
it doesn't cost them anything but time mostly...i agree with mr. numbers ^..
MYxdaUSERNAME said:
it doesn't cost them anything but time mostly...i agree with mr. numbers ^..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Time = Money
Money = Motivation
Do the math.
I can't even imagine the hours that go into the development of these ROMs.
I personally strongly believe in donations for these devs.
It's definitely not required, and no one should feel obligated.
But if you can afford it throw them a few bucks.
Sent from my B.A.M.F. Thunderbolt

[Q] Costs of Developing vs. Donations

Do developers of custom roms recoup all their costs when accepting donations?
Or do they typically lose money and just do it for fun?
Thanks.
Why you are asking? It always starts as hobby and passion, when as a result you want to show this to the world, people who like this start to require more and more. Developer has to spend more and more time. So wants some money for work, as it stopped to be passion.

[Q] How much to give to a developer?

So some of the developers working on the rezound are phenomenal for dealing with all the drama and childish behavior and the fact that the phone was a B*%#& and a half to develop for.
I am trying to help out a developer with whatever lil i have but i dont want to insult him / her either . What do you guys recommend for min ( or even max to evenly distribute ) for a developer that you feel really helped you out ?
jmichaels1982 said:
So some of the developers working on the rezound are phenomenal for dealing with all the drama and childish behavior and the fact that the phone was a B*%#& and a half to develop for.
I am trying to help out a developer with whatever lil i have but i dont want to insult him / her either . What do you guys recommend for min ( or even max to evenly distribute ) for a developer that you feel really helped you out ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What an interesting thread , among those where people are just too lazy to search...
Don't worry about how much you give, no developer will feel insulted.
You won't be able to make it worthwhile for the developer, most spend countless hours on their projects and 3 digit donations would have to come in to make it worthwhile for the dev. But that doesn't matter as no one publishes his creations on xda in expectations of money.
The developer will just be happy that some users care enough about his work to even donate.
That being said, i would recommend this:
If you are looking for a minimum to give, my recommendation would be the price of a beer/energydrink/nice cup of coffee/tee .
There is no maximum , if you have the money and give the developer 1000$, i'm sure he won't mind. Maybe don't donate a million else he might abandon his work and live on an island in the pacific drinking cocktails instead of developing .
Between those, donate anything you would feel good about or are comfortable with.
i normaly donate like 5-10 dollars/eur.
how much u will donate is up to you...since its your own will how much u will give. i'd give even more if i had golds
Generally I donate about 10-20 dollars for the developer. All the money you donate goes to the person. This way I'm more apt to give a little more without the question of where my money is going.
I'd say about 5 min 20 at the top level if your poor like me
What about donations to multiple devs?
I recently made some donations to some devs who packaged one-click solutions for the Transformer Prime & Galaxy Nexus. Now, the devs did use other's work (and acknowledged it), but is it OK to just ask them to share the donation as they see fit?
I mean, when I buy software, I pay a company and they distribute the proceeds to employees in the form of wages (and to shareholders/owners) so I don't have to find each individual who contributed to the application and determine how much they deserve based on the significance of their contributions.
Not that these donations are expected to make anyone rich, but my hope would be that ALL contributors are receiving something for their work.
give what you have to give

XDA Developers Day

My phone always has the latest Android-version installed! Even when the manufacturer is no longer supporting my phone. Ain’t that cool?
I enjoy these ROM’s with many thanks to people who develop, maintain or build these free of charge. Some of them don’t even own my phone model, but are still spending many private hours to provide me with the latest builds.
In the past I have heard of developers that stopped maintaining specific ROM’s because of some users that kept complaining and demanding. Even though they don’t pay these developers for their services.
I also had a small chat with another ROM-builder who spent a lot of time talking to users on the XDA-forum, but also experienced users that were pissing him off.
They do their thing for us.
Building, developing or maintaining ROM’s.
Helping us out with issues.
Searching through logfiles.
Sometimes not even owning the same device themselves. They need us to give them feedback, though actually we need ourselves to make it possible for them to help us.
They spend a lot of time discussing on several forums.
All free of charge.
They don’t owe us anything, but us users asking a lot of them and sometimes pissing them off with our demands.
We didn’t buy their support.
Not really fair, right?
Shouldn’t we start an XDA Developers Day for one day in a year?
For example February 18th?
Showing these people some respect for at least one day. One day without complaining, pissing them off and bugging them.
Maybe even do a small (or extra) donation in case you haven’t done this before?
One day on which users say thank you to their developers, builders and maintainers!
Let’s do this on February 18th. I hope you will join!
Myself I might donate @codeworkx for supporting i9100 ROM that I used for a long time!
I might also donate @cyrilp for his excellent Android Wear-app!
I might also donate @infected_ and @qsnc for keeping yuga and pollux alive!
I hope more people will join this initiative!
andyvdsteen said:
Myself I might donate @codeworkx for supporting i9100 ROM that I used for a long time!
I might also donate @cyrilp for his excellent Android Wear-app!
I might also donate @infected_ and @qsnc for keeping yuga and pollux alive!
I hope more people will join this initiative!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for mentioning my work ☺
Looks like I will celebrate XDA Developers Day on my own today.
Oh well, it is still a huge success since last year nobody was celebrating this at all.
I just did my promised donations. :good:
andyvdsteen said:
My phone always has the latest Android-version installed! Even when the manufacturer is no longer supporting my phone. Ain’t that cool?
I enjoy these ROM’s with many thanks to people who develop, maintain or build these free of charge. Some of them don’t even own my phone model, but are still spending many private hours to provide me with the latest builds.
In the past I have heard of developers that stopped maintaining specific ROM’s because of some users that kept complaining and demanding. Even though they don’t pay these developers for their services.
I also had a small chat with another ROM-builder who spent a lot of time talking to users on the XDA-forum, but also experienced users that were pissing him off.
They do their thing for us.
Building, developing or maintaining ROM’s.
Helping us out with issues.
Searching through logfiles.
Sometimes not even owning the same device themselves. They need us to give them feedback, though actually we need ourselves to make it possible for them to help us.
They spend a lot of time discussing on several forums.
All free of charge.
They don’t owe us anything, but us users asking a lot of them and sometimes pissing them off with our demands.
We didn’t buy their support.
Not really fair, right?
Shouldn’t we start an XDA Developers Day for one day in a year?
For example February 18th?
Showing these people some respect for at least one day. One day without complaining, pissing them off and bugging them.
Maybe even do a small (or extra) donation in case you haven’t done this before?
One day on which users say thank you to their developers, builders and maintainers!
Let’s do this on February 18th. I hope you will join!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are 100% correct there should be a xda developers day .....
Am 100% supporting this

Categories

Resources