WinterMute needs help

[smealum]

As some of you may know, WinterMute has been a very important part of the homebrew "scene" for years. He's the main guy behind devkitPro, which distributes such software as devkitARM, libnds, devkitPPC; there's no telling what state DS homebrew would be in if it weren't for him.
He's been giving to the community for years, and now he needs a little help. As he puts it :

As some of you may know from IRC conversations and some blog posts I suffered a breakdown some years ago due to stress related to working in the games industry. I'm not the first this happened to and I'm sure I won't be the last but it eventually led me to maintaining a popular and well respected set of tools for homebrew programming and I discovered that I actually really enjoy being a part of this community.
[...]
Right now I'm currently on Incapacity Benefit but, if you've been following any UK news, you'll know that our government are on a bit of a crusade to paint the sick and disabled as feckless scroungers who add no value to society.
[...]
There are various grants available to help with moving into work but the main condition is that a job should be for at least 16 hours a week, pay at least national minimum wage and be expected to last for at least 5 weeks. That works out to £495.20 (£6.19 * 16 * 5) or roughly $795 at current exchange rates but ideally I'd like to be able to get to around 6 months to get a bit of space to deal with startup issues and get some products together that people might be willing to buy. 26 weeks works out to £2575.04 or roughly $4138 so, allowing for paypal fees and some exchange rate fluctuations I've set up a chipin with a target of $5000 which should hopefully get things moving.

I don't intend to ever charge money for the toolchains directly - part of the philosophy with these tools is that everyone should have access to those, regardless of ability to pay. There are some other possibilities with some hardware prototypes I'm working on related to homebrew and some of the other systems that people use devkitARM for. A while ago I was asked by a publisher if I'd be interested in writing a book on homebrew programming, which actually I would but obviously that needs some other revenue to support me while it's being worked on.

So basically, what he needs is funds to start a business out of devkitPro. He's not asking for that much, and with both 3DS and Wii U hacks likely coming up, devkitPro may have a reason to stay around for a while still.

Link to the chipin : http://devkitpro.chipin.com/wintermutes-self-employment-fund
Link to the original post : http://devkitpro.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6659

 

[Gh0sti]

why doesn't he do a kickstarter...

 

[Snailface]

why doesn't he do a kickstarter...

That's a great way for him to have a second breakdown.

But yeah, we need to help this guy, he's done so much for the homebrew community.

 

[Gh0sti]

That's a great way for him to have a second breakdown.

But yeah, we need to help this guy, he's done so much for the homebrew community.

He wouldn't get a second break down; it would help him raise money for his projects, plus honestly other random people who don't know him would give money. Essentially he would get more, it's what people like to call unexpected cash; cash you were not even thinking about getting from people who are not associated with what you do.
I hope the best for him but I hope he does a kickstarter for this as I think it would help out.

 

[FAST6191]

I hope he does a kickstarter for this

Chipin and logic behind this one
Where random people can help fund a business venture by means of small donations

Kickstarter and logic behind their original model
Where random people can help fund a business venture by means of small donations

 

[Snailface]

Chipin and logic behind this one
Where random people can help fund a business venture by means of small donations

Kickstarter and logic behind their original model
Where random people can help fund a business venture by means of small donations

Good point. I think with the Chipin method is more low key and would suit this project of his better. Kickstarter would bring more publicity, but would also introduce issues such as getting approved, deadlines, and the stress of "investors" expecting production out of him. Given the condition he's in, that's not the best route. And its only $5000, which chipin should be plenty sufficient for.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Pft, screw that. If it was for a better cause, yeah I might lend some money, but nah.

 

[Foxi4]

Frontpage'd it on DS-Scene, I hope his fundraiser works out well. Without him, we wouldn't even have a fraction of the GBA, DS, Gamecube, PSP or GP32 homebrew we enjoy today, he derserves a token of appreciation from the community.

 

[realWinterMute]

He wouldn't get a second break down; it would help him raise money for his projects, plus honestly other random people who don't know him would give money. Essentially he would get more, it's what people like to call unexpected cash; cash you were not even thinking about getting from people who are not associated with what you do.
I hope the best for him but I hope he does a kickstarter for this as I think it would help out.

LOL, another breakdown probably wouldn't be good and, being honest, neither I nor my doctors can guarantee what level of stress I can cope with without triggering more problems (although we can pretty much guarantee that the stress of the WCA process will definitely trigger more issues)

Kickstarter don't allow projects to start a business and hardware projects need to be complete and ready for production stage. See http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines for some details - the toolchains themselves are obviously open ended and may never be "final" as such - which is part of why I like doing them.

Kickstarter also operates an all or nothing funding model and, if successful, then it looks like Kickstarter take up to 12% of the final total - 5% in their fee, 3-5% in processor fees and 20% VAT on the total fee. That could be up to $600 off the $5K total I've gone for here & in any case there's a range of donations that would help get things off the ground so I can focus on some projects without worrying what the heck the DWP and ATOS are going to do next. IndieGoGo might have been better due to the flexible funding option but they take 12% + $25 + unspecified currency exchange fees for projects that don't reach final goal.

This actually seemed like a good way to raise funds to allow doing some prep for a KickStarter early next year. Depending on the average donation it may be possible to give all the donors some of the rewards I have in mind for that without them having to actually pledge again. Don't really want to say too much about what that might be at this stage - you could kind of call this a trial run to gauge potential interest and hopefully get enough funds together to have a good shot at getting some projects to a stage where they'll be suitable for KS.

Many thanks to those who have donated already, it's much appreciated