[Freedombox-discuss] Kickstarter's initial goal was reached

[Bdale Garbee]

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011 09:58:14 -0800, Matt Joyce <matt at nycresistor.com> wrote:
> I don't see the point of a well
> funded foundation when there is no actual freedom box in existence
> yet.

I'm not speaking in any official capacity here, but let me share a bit
of my thinking on this... based at least in part on the experiences I've
acquired doing what I've done for a day job over the last decade plus.

What you need to realize is that the "Free Software project" side of the
freedom box vision, which is what most folks here can easily identify
with and want to participate in, is only one part of the equation.  If
we really want the results of such a project to materially improve
freedom in the world, then eventually we need people everywhere to be
able to walk into a local technology hardware provider and be able to
just buy a pre-loaded freedom box off the shelf.  At least as easily as
they can buy a wireless access point or router, or a notebook computer.
And hopefully as easily as they can acquire a mobile phone!

Arranging for that to happen requires a lot of things beyond just coming
up with a great technical architecture, and writing and assembling
together great software.  It also requires educating, building
relationships with, and negotiating with senior technologists and
business decision makers in top-tier companies in the IT industry.  And
*that* would be, at best, *very* hard to do in a purely volunteer-driven
way with no money. 

In the US, if you want to hire even a few people and pay some travel
expenses to get them to the right places... even if those people are so
passionate about the work that they're willing to work for something
like a minimal stipend instead of a "real IT salary", $500k isn't really
very much money.

Could all of this work wait until there's some sort of finished software
release to shop around?  Perhaps.  But is that the right way to proceed?
Eben's impassioned plea during his keynote at FOSDEM that we accelerate
the rate of progress to try and help our friends all around the world
who are fighting for their freedoms *now* suggests to me that working as
many pieces of this equation in parallel as possible is absolutely the
right choice.

> If we fail to wow people with our first release, we will face the
> whiptail wrath of a target user base scorned.

I understand this concern, but I'm not as worried about it as I might
be, because I suspect that most of the kickstarter money is coming from
people close enough to our passion to understand that getting to the
complete vision isn't a trivial slam-dunk technically.

But I guess we'll see...

Bdale
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