

Light Table: 24 Hours to Get Another $7000 in the Kickstarter for Python Support - gburt
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table?ref=history

======
radarsat1
I kind of shocked at how much money he's getting upfront to develop something
people haven't even tried yet. I guess a killer demo is a killer demo.

~~~
melling
"Geeks of the world unite" :-). What's wrong with betting $50 that someone
with a little talent can accomplish something big. I'm hoping John Carmack
will do a Kickstarter rocket project. SpaceX needs a little more competition.

~~~
Arelius
My guess is that John Carmack could kickstart rocket projects with his own
checkbook better than we've seen financing from kickstarter.

Rocket projects are _very_ expensive!!

~~~
melling
Here's one Kickstarter rocket engine project that got funded.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermesspace/hermes-
space...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermesspace/hermes-spacecraft)

Why not crowd fund a team that builds a Lunar X-Prize entry?

<http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/>

And open source the design, of course.

More down to earth, crowd funding is doing some interesting stuff like helping
to get this 3D printer built.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/b9creations/b9creator-a-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/b9creations/b9creator-
a-high-resolution-3d-printer?ref=home_spotlight)

------
aaronbrethorst
As a fellow Visual Studio alum, I am sorely disappointed that Chris elected
not to include SCREAMING CAPITALIZED MENUS or a superhero mask logo, and is
instead focusing on pushing the state of the art in programming tools.

------
lrem
All this story is somewhat confusing. In fact, I was pondering about jumping
in... Until I found the bit about Python support, what made me grab my wallet.
But then, the model here is quite tricky. If not enough people pledge, then I
won't get what I want. Then, external funding comes. But somehow it's still
crucial that I throw in my couple bucks, just because otherwise the project
may not be what I wanted. But if I finally pledge, what do I get in return?
Again, it's somewhat confusing. I'm buying a license. But the thing maybe will
get open sourced. What is a license to an open source software? What are my
incentives to pay for it? Equally, what are the incentives of unknown other
people to pay for it? If I can't establish that, I have no idea what are the
chances of me getting what I wanted in the first place... Thanks, I'll pass,
despite all the enthusiasm I had at an impulse. I just won't put $0.01 into
anything that is not clear.

~~~
twiceaday
I agree. This goes against one of the key principles of Kickstarter: if a
project you are funding doesn't get funded you get your money back. It is a
difficult problem though. On one hand you don't want to fund half a project
but on the other if they wildly exceed their funding goal it would be nice of
them to spend the extra money on new features.

~~~
hysan
Kickstarter should implement feature/subproject goals to fix these problems.
To illustrate:

Say the main project needs $200k to get funded. This becomes the main target
goal. If this is reached, the core is funded and those backers pay up.

Then you have the feature/subproject goals. These are separate counters for
those who will only back a project if the feature/subproject will be
implemented. So say you need $50k on top of the core goal to support Mac OSX
and another $50k to support Linux. Supporters for Mac OSX & Linux support can
choose to fund the platform they want directly. That way if the main project
hits 200k but Mac OSX and Linux each get $25k each (which in the current setup
would probably mean only support for one of them, whichever is listed first),
then those separate $25k pots are just dropped as if the project were not
funded. That way supporters aren't forced to pay up and get nothing of value
in return.

In the case that the core support spills over, say it hits $225k, then the
project owner can choose which extra feature to pick up and they will get that
donation money (if they pick Mac OSX, they get those donations but the Linux
supporters don't have to pay up, and vice-versa).

~~~
cdcarter
I think very few kickstarter projects (which are primarily works of art) have
any utility for this. It seems like quite the feature creep for what really
just looks like a project using the model poorly (though effectively).

~~~
hysan
Then how about restricting it to being a feature for design and technology
projects? Per their own guidelines and vision, they have very few requirements
for these types of projects. Additionally, these "we will support X" type
extra goals are seen in a lot of technology projects (software and video games
primarily for the "support X operating system" goals) and actually make sense
to list as "bonus" goals. So for these types of projects, I think the model
isn't being used poorly. Instead, the model is insufficient to properly fund
these types of projects.

------
SCdF
Chris has YC funding now, so surely he doesn't need another 7k from the
Internet to make sure Python support is in.

~~~
carbocation
I would argue that Kickstarter funding is basically equivalent to a sale, and
dissimilar to angel or venture funding. For one, you don't give up equity for
Kickstarter funding.

In general, regardless of how much funding one might have, one would also like
to have the maximum dollar value of sales possible. Kickstarter facilitates
this both by enabling sales-like revenue in the first place, and by enabling
price discrimination. I'd need to learn more about the Kickstarter funding
mechanism to understand whether the sales analogy is totally appropriate or
just partially so, but it seems to me to be the far better analogy when
compared to venture funding.

~~~
SCdF
Absolutely, and I threw him some dosh because I think that even if it fails
horribly this is the kind of tool evolution we need to look in to.

All I'm saying is that it's not like he's going to run out of money to build
in Python support.

~~~
carbocation
My apologies, I _completely_ misread the title of the post and therefore
misunderstood your comment as well.

------
sandis
This is silly. I'm not against funding projects through Kickstarter, but "If
we hit $300k, Python will be the third language to be supported out of the
gate." sounds almost like an ultimatum. What if they don't hit $300k? Will
Ruby be the third language then?

~~~
frio
Given how close they are, I imagine they'll do Python anyway. It's more a "if
we get an extra $100k, then we'll spend your money on hiring developers to
have Python support alongside the languages we promised to focus on first".

------
gryphon65
Those considering this might want to look at larch.

<https://sites.google.com/site/larchenv/new-start-page>

------
byoung2
Looks like they just crossed $300k around 7:10pm PDT

~~~
antimora
hooray!

------
abp
This whole discussion is getting out of hand. Light Table is on Kickstarter,
because an awful lot of people screamed for it being funded, when they saw the
first prototype of this thing.

Now it is on there and all I see everytime it get's up here is people
complaining, saying they won't fund because of xyz or don't think it will
succeed without blurb. Even better: Some get destructive and say how much
better Eclipse or the likes are.

Please stop this shit, don't fund, don't use, don't complain and please don't
raise such shitstorms on every single Light Table discussion. Can we probably
focus a little on being constructive about projects like this?

------
FuzzyDunlop
Another way of framing this is that we don't know what the actual cost of a
license will be, and you can get one for $15. Comparatively, Sublime Text 2 is
$60 and Textmate is €45.

Even though they say it'll be open source, that doesn't exclude the
possibility of a commercial license that could be far more expensive.

Maybe this is a bad argument to make. But if it interests you, $15 isn't a
massive expense if you think you'll get a lot out of it.

~~~
freditup
Darn, and here I thought open source projects were supposed to be free. I
think the pay what you want model would be appropriate - and I think that may
be what Granger hinted at, not sure.

~~~
dkersten
_Darn, and here I thought open source projects were supposed to be free._

Well, there's two core parts to open source and free software and neither have
much to do with not having to pay for it (though that often is the case).
First, there's the availability of source code and second is _free as in
freedom, not as in beer_. But we don't yet know what license this will be
released under, so we don't know what rights or restrictions may apply.
Presumably, by the sounds of the text about Light Table being open source, it
will be a standard Free and Open source license (GPL seems most likely to me)
and he also says that the paid license will probably apply to prebuilt
packaged releases, so if you don't mind building everything yourself, you may
well get it for free after all.

 _I think the pay what you want model would be appropriate_

I agree, for Free & Open Source Software, pay what you want seems like a very
suitable model.

------
benjaminRRR
This is a $15 bet for a product that should at the very least get other people
thinking about the potential that exists in the commercial sense for IDEs. Not
only that, there's a peer group watching that is very active, very vocal, and
will increase the chances something is actually produced.

------
mangler
I'm not against money in any way whatsoever, but, really, you don't do this
kind of stuff for cash. You just don't. It should have been done already and
the money should be flowing in without kickstarter to YC or other means. You
build it, and if it's any good the money will swamp you...

~~~
zevyoura
Are you opposed to Kickstarter in general? If not, what makes this project
different?

~~~
mangler
I am not opposed to anything. Kickstarter included. Kickstarter is inherently
against the system and all the classical financial theory as it is known. If
you invest in something (even a minuscule amount) you should expect a fraction
of the return (small or big). Investors should be rewarded for making the
right choice (and punished for making the wrong choice). The only reward for
investment is return. This is not about money either - it can be time, effort,
or attention.

Kickstarter does not provide enough difference between bad and good choices.
You get a t-shirt or nothing. It's an option that nobody would buy in an open
market.

This is not necessarily bad. Or good. It's ok. But it is not a market that is
in any way fair with respect to capital. And capital does not mean Big Money!
Capital means ordinary Joe giving away cash they saved for worse days based on
the emotional appeal of something, instead of any rational assessment of its
worth.

~~~
law
You're completely correct. Where I have trouble with the model is that
Kickstarter does not do enough to correct the spread of misinformation
concerning the precise character of your "pledge." It's not a donation and
it's not an investment; both of those terms beget some serious legal issues.
Instead, it's a _purchase of goods_ , namely, the "rewards." So why even refer
to these purchased goods as "rewards"? To me, a reward is something extra you
get for some unrelated action. For example, you wouldn't refer to groceries as
a "reward" for the money you gave to the cashier...

Moreover, there's a secondary issue with the confusion of market norms and
social norms. Ostensibly, this project spawned from a passion for programming.
Now, however, that passion is unclear, because it seems to be about money,
given the quasi-ultimatum for python support.

------
rjsamson
I didn't realized they had changed tiers to include a license in the $15
backing - backed!

------
reidrac
It's an exciting project and I'd try it if there was Python support (I'm a vim
user myself), but the FAQ answer to the open source question really put me
off.

------
mparlane
I'm curious, if they don't hit the 300k needed, will they go back on their
word and support python anyway?

~~~
david_shaw
It does seem a little silly that they're requiring so much more money for a
language that obviously has such significant support.

Also, I'm not sure how it would work for people who donated solely in hopes
that Python would be supported. Since they've long passed their _actual_
kickstarter funding amount, does that leave ~$100k worth of donors that won't
get what they tried to buy, but can't get their money refunded?

They'll probably get the money and we'll never know, but I would be interested
to find out how they're planning to handle these issues.

~~~
frio
Chris programs Clojure, and Light Table's demos have (so far) been about
Clojure. It's not a ransom: it's "if we get another $100k, we will spend that
money on hiring developers to work explicitly on _this_ feature". It's a
notice informing pledgers (is that a word?) about where any extra funding will
go.

~~~
dkersten
His latest demo actually supported Python, so I think Python support is a
given at this stage, regardless of how much money he gets on kickstarter.

------
prezjordan
I like it, but I'm thinking an open-source clone is going to pop up mighty
soon.

~~~
binarycrusader
The author has promised that the core will be open source at launch:

"...the core of Light Table be open sourced once it is launched."

What 'core' means, I have no idea.

They admit that this is an experiment of how business and open source can mix.

------
dysoco
I'd better like "If we get to $7000 we are doing this a Desktop App", rather
than a crap web app.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
It's not a web app. They just use webkit as a presentation layer. As do quite
a bit of apps these days.

