creating open source software and words on the internet

I've been making vague plans for the better part of a year to get a Patreon together in order to allow people to support my independent creation and maintenance of open source (mostly Python) software, my writing, and my creation of new applications and/or games (which are probably open source but maybe not entirely).  Obsessively trying to craft tiers that offer potential patrons good value for money, writing and rewriting copy, trying to come up with ways to facilitate appropriate expressions of appreciation in both written content and software, and really just generally making the perfect into the enemy of the good.

It eventually became clear to me that if I continued in this vein, I would continue to polish this forever and never put a page up.

So, instead, I'll do this: you can give me money if you want to. It's probably a bad idea to do that! I don't know what, if anything, I will eventually give you in return. Maybe early access to some software. Maybe some exclusive text posts here about some thoughts on software design, or open source community building.  Maybe the presence in some credits in an 'about' screen in an app. Maybe there will be a video game some day, and something to do with that?

Right now, my primary focus is on getting https://github.com/glyph/pomodouroboros into a state where it's ready for some serious beta testers and in some supporting changes to Twisted that might facilitate it. So the most likely thing is that you'll get some kind of notification about that, but also, at least the first few versions are just gonna be open source, or drafts of some articles or talks about the experience of creating production non-web, non-data-science desktop software (first macOS, then later for other platforms) in Python.

The only real value in giving me any money here will be allowing me to justify the time I'm spending on this stuff to myself, and also to my family, rather than looking for a real job. If that's a thing you would like to do, then sure, go for it.

If this goes anywhere, one day, I will hopefully—and I must stress for both legal and ethical reasons that this “hopefully” is absolutely not a commitment to anything at all—provide some sort of retroactive benefit to any backers who were foolish enough to throw money at this awful sales pitch. But also there is a not-inconsiderable risk that I'll just fail entirely at this attempt at independent…something… and it'll go nowhere.

So, now that you have been extensively warned: here goes nothing! Or, you know, hopefully not nothing nothing.