Sometimes people wonder (I have) why open source software developers want/need/ask for help. Isn’t it all about “scratching an itch”? You didn’t start this for money, did you? So why now? Why does Lupa need money to put CalendarX back in the running for event management in the Plone world?

Frankly, I’m not sure how to answer this, but I use writing to help me think, so here we go, unedited.

First, until this week, I didn’t have full-time employment and I have a lot of bills, including support and health insurance for my kids (who no longer live with me), and… well, that’s just the start of the woes. Suffice it to say that several of my business ventures in the past have had negative profits and I’m not yet out from under that burden. So there has been real financial need.

I do have a new job now (started 2 days ago), reasonably decent pay, although no health benefits (until after some months). So there is, admittedly, somewhat less of a dire need.

Here’s why I think funding CalendarX is a good idea, and worth your donation.

1. CalendarX has been a good quality piece of code. I’ve always tried to keep a stable version without critical bugs available and current. Your donation is a compliment to me, and a complement to an effort in software goodwill.

2. CalendarX is widely used… it has had more than 15,000 downloads with an ongoing 10-20 copies per day from sourceforge. Do a quick search on Google for “powered by calendarx” and you’ll see a lot of sites. Your donation helps by enabling CalendarX to move into the next phase of Plone’s success.

3. Frankly, I’ve not been the best leader of open source software project. I’ve been more of a BDFL than a collaborative leader… notice that there’s no SVN repository for CalendarX? Just tarballs. The result is a solid piece of code that has a consistent style throughout, but it is mine, through and through. Several of you have learned the code pretty well, and have tweaked and skinned it yourselves, but frankly it is a hodgepodge of patches and spaghetti, a crazy quilt of Python/DTML/ZPT madness.

In otherwords, there are a lot of users out there, with sites and developers relying on CalendarX for their sites, and no upgrade path. If Lupa doesn’t do it, who the heck will? Personally, I still think CalendarX is the best looking calendar for Plone out of the box, and it can be tweaked pretty easily. Tweaked, mind you, not rebuilt… that’s not going to be easy.

I’m busy, there’s a LOT going on in my life right now (like any of you aren’t busy). So I need this money, this show of support to get me to dive back into the code after a hiatus of more than 18 months… that’s right, it’s been almost two years since I last released a tarball and still there are almost no questions sent to me by email or to the calendarx-users listserv. I spent a lot of time documenting CalendarX and making it work well, and it’s paid off for everyone.

So… #4++ is pay me so that I can break my lethargic negligence and resurrect something that a lot of you use. If you work in a University or Company that uses CalendarX on several sites, break out your petty cash and give me a kiss. Join in the Goodness and Love that is open sourceness and help me feel wanted, needed, blessed by your warmth. I like CalendarX, my baby, and I’d love to kick it out of adolescence and out into the next stage of its life.

And I promise I’ll rewrite the documentation too. Even though it’s already perfect.