Re: Sponsoring features in F/OSS projects

[Tom]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman <at> gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > And even small contributions can add up if it's a feature which is
> > wanted by lots of users (better Java/C++ support, for example),
> >  so that lots of people donates to have that feature.
> 
> Who is going to decide which features it is possible to donate to?
> 

Why should anyone decide? Who decides what packages one can develop
for Emacs? One of the main strength of Emacs is people can develop
new features for it without having to get them accepted into the
official sources. There are popular packages that are maintained 
outside of the official tree.

So donating for a feature does not mean it will necessarily be 
implemented by a member of the core team. Anyone can implement
it, so there is no need for official blessing for features.
The only thing needed is getting enough people behind the 
feature, so it collects enough donations that someone takes up
the job.

An official wishlist would be useful, though, so that there is
a single place where emacs users can submit their wishes and
see what wishes others submitted. This wishlist may need some
kind of moderation, but this moderation should only cover
merging duplicate wishes and stuff, pre-approval should not
be a requirement for a wish to get into the wishlist.