[OpenAFS] the future

[Troy Benjegerdes]

I would hope that the donation link would be a more subtle, and equally
effective incentive. If edu CIO's start getting emails from professors
asking "Why is this software we depend on asking for donations", maybe 
they'd start looking at their overhead budgets. But that overhead money
will come from somewhere else.. We better have a story on the donation
landing page on how much AFS saves vs the 'storage appliance' and 'cloud'
models that are all the rage among CIOs.

How about a landing page with a survey of "What excessive IT spend would
you cut in your organization and redirect to AFS?".

One-time deals (on linux) that require interaction will blow up all kinds
of automated tools and leave the rank and file admins your enemy. 

How do you pop up a dialog when aklog is called via the GDM/KDM login via
pam_aklog, for instance?

On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 10:52:51AM -0700, Ted Creedon wrote:
> My intent was to foment a user uprising resulting in pressure on the .edu &
> .com level administrators to provide funding from established budgets. More
> of a corporate funding than individual contributions.
> 
> Perhaps a cc to the local spreadsheet managers would get the user needs
> better communicated.
> 
> I.e. you can't aklog one time only until you fill out the poll, send it in
> w/cc to local financial folks.
> 
> Tedc
> 
> On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Troy Benjegerdes <hozer@hozed.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> > On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 02:49:08AM -0700, Ted Creedon wrote:
> >
> > > How about taking a AFS wide survey using a aklog token driven one time
> > pop
> > > up explaining that AFS is not being updated according to industry
> > standards
> > > and that it needs substantial financial support.
> > >
> > > Most users are charged for computer support one way or another. AFS needs
> > > to be included just like Microsoft license fees.
> > >
> > > I.e. is there any way to get the users fired up?
> >
> > I like this. But I think for this to work we need a simple URL like
> > 'http://openafs.org/donate' that that shows up in the command line aklog
> > client, and on a clickable link in the GUI client.
> >
> > Currently http://static.usenix.org/about/openafs/ is the only 'donate to
> > OpenAFS' link I can find, but that requires cutting a check. The landing
> > page for donations needs to accept PayPal, Amazon payments, Dwolla, and
> > Bitcoin, as well as form to click saying 'My organization uses openafs,
> > please contact __________ who has purchasing authority'
> >
> > I think it would look better to have a full OpenAFS foundation with clear
> > governance, but for the moment, all that is needed is some consensus to
> > set up a 'donate' landing page on OpenAFS.org, and someone to set up the
> > payment arrangements so checks get regularly cut to the address on the
> > Usenix association page.
> >
> > If there is a consensus to go ahead with this, I would be willing to offer
> > to handle the Dwolla and Bitcoin 'instant donate' links. I can beat
> > whatever
> > percentage Amazon and Paypal take and still make it worth my time, and I'll
> > include the others because it makes for wider audience for contributions.
> >
> > If there is not a consensus to go ahead with this within a month or two,
> > I'm going to (at whatever glacial pace I feel like it) release TFS
> > version(s)
> > for Linux, Android, and MacOS that have such a link and donate pages.
> >