Has a crowdfunding campaign ever been set up to create plugins for Joplin? For example a developer sets a quoted price for creating a plugin and once the $ threshold is reached...the funds are released and the developer starts working.
There could be 10,000's of Evernote users who hate the privacy issues but can't switch because there are no good alternatives. I think crowdfunding campaigns would give these people more incentive to invest in the Joplin project because they can see a clear outcome from their contribution. "I give money and I get this plugin I want"
If there are 10,000's interested, the pool of funds would be larger, and Joplin developers would be better compensated for their time. Could also speed up the development and help prioritization since the $ size of the crowdfunding would signal to developers what plugins are most important to users.
I personally tried Joplin out for a month but had to switch back to Evernote. If the below features were added, I would definitely switch over.
-Ability to recover notes, notebooks, or tags that were deleted by mistake.
-Show thumbnail pictures in the notes list.
(I think it would be easier to find notes if the notes list included body text summary, tags and creation date.)
-Ability to sort searches by creation date, updated date or title.
-Ability to search within a pdf document.
-Ability for pasted website links to be clickable. Also links in web clipper.
Somebody put one up recently and on upwork but nobody seemed particularly interested (I know not if it was lack of interest, lack of visibility, insufficient reward etc.)
What you are essentially asking for is a bounty system for plugins, the issue being, like how @roman_r_m has just pointed out, some plugin ideas might be straight up impossible to accomplish without core changes (and those potential core changes could be both bad or good).
(Please do not read this in a "shouty" or "ranting" voice. It really is just a "have you considered this?" type of posting )
This sounds like a good idea but who orgainises the crowdfunding? Who finalises the job spec? Does a person who contributes £100 have more say than someone who contributes £1? Who decides who is given the money (in whole or in part) to do the work? Who has to determine that the programmer is competent? Who draws up the contract? Who determines whether the submitted plugin is fit for purpose? Who manages disputes over the "fitness" decision? Who then deals with any legal fallout from those who paid and got nothing (or something not as they expected) or those who submitted the work and for some reason were not getting paid for it?
I suppose this could all be the responsibility of the person who initially wants the plugin but once a plugin is written, paid for and in use, who then maintains and updates it?
I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade but I feel that when people start paying for stuff things can get quite complicated. You cannot just assume that the work will get done on time and to a suitable standard or that the person won't just take the money and disappear.
Cynical? Possibly.
And here we hit what I see as the crux of the matter. People would see themselves as investing in Joplin. They are, in fact, investing in a third party whose motivation could be to produce something, anything, using the least possible time and effort in order to maximise their return. A couple of bad outcomes could therefore hurt Joplin as a project even if the crowd-funding was not endorsed by the project.
To me the crowd-funding idea seems to be an awful lot of work to get a job done as well as make sure the Joplin "brand" was not tainted.
Of course I may be completely wrong (and far too pessimistic )
Also if it's a core change, and if it's a low quality PR, I might just close it without reviewing, so it can be risky to pay someone and potentially get nothing out of it.
I'll give you my perspective as an occasional contributor to Joplin and author of a couple of plugins.
I do it because for me it's fun. A big part of what makes it fun is I can work on whatever I want and whenever I want. Or even take a break if I want to focus on something else.
As soon as money is involved it turns into another job. And I don't want another job. Financially it probably won't make a huge difference for me but I know I'd feel obligated to provide support etc.
People would see themselves as investing in Joplin. They are, in fact, investing in a third party whose motivation could be to produce something, anything, using the least possible time and effort in order to maximise their return.
I would think that the core people who are developing joplin right now, would be the ones who initiate the crowdfunding and write out a proposal for a plugin project. They know the program best so they would know what's possible and whats not.
What if the joplin homepage kept the donation option but also added a crowdfunding option? Just as a test to see if it can bring in more funding. Maybe even produce a youtube video promoting it etc..
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