So I’m here tonight on the forum and excited after reading about the new leap in the KiCad development cycle. I’m working on both hobby and commercial designs, and I’m wondering how donations to KiCad affect the pace of development.
In my mind I’m thinking of the video that was made showing the contributions in an audio/visual demonstration of the effort that was put into the KiCad code (and I’d link it, but I don’t think I can find it).
It seems the only way to donate money to KiCad development is via Cern. This is their web page on the subject matter:
All donations will be put to immediate use in developing KiCad. Any amount is welcome and will be gratefully received.
Please note that we are unable to process transactions below CHF 10.
2 hours - CHF 120
As an American citizen of the United States I am dumb and stupid and have no idea what a 120 CHF is?
Google:
120 Swiss Franc equals
120.59 US Dollar
Why did I have to do that extra Google instead of just saving my time and sending KiCad more money?
If KiCad Admins can get more productive code time in with more donations, then they should make the donations easier to make.
@pedro Do you know the exchange rate of the Euro, Yen, Swiss Franc, and US dollar at any given moment?
These are only four currencies, not the more than 200 in your post.
I’m currently living in the United States and the US dollar is what I am familiar with. I’m trying to advocate that KiCad might get more US dollars into the program if the donation web site were more readable to US English users of KiCad.
From your post it appears that you do not want it to be easier for me, personally, to understand how to monetarily contribute to this program; I did not even intuitively understand one currency, let alone more then 200 more.
@pedro Is there some reason that you do not want it to be easier for the US currency to assist in the development of KiCad?
You have a valid point, but try to breathe in and out a couple of times before you reply - less grey hair
Now, to be constructive… did you run across any currency lookup ‘services’ that are free to use that CERN could add to their website?
They would check the country/language setting of your browser and display the most probable currency that you understand…
On another note, if they had a paypal donation option (or does that appear once I filled in those details there?) I’d have donated 5 minutes ago.
“All donations will be put to immediate use in developing KiCad. Any amount is welcome and will be gratefully received.”
That button takes you to a page with:
#There are also methods to donate tax efficiently.
To do this, follow the Support Us link on the top navigation link. This takes you to
a Giving to CERN - Support Us page, from which you can click on the Donate online link.
On the Giving to CERN Make a donation page, under the picture there is a link within the text * In certain cases, tax advantages can be claimed by your local tax authorities.* This takes you to a Giving to CERN - Tax efficient giving page. This page gives instructions for tax efficient giving from several countries.
I didn’t find any all-in-one free geolocation specific currency converter, but I did find several free JSON APIs that, combined, could be used to do the job.
The first one uses the IP address to obtain country name, among other details:
LOL, don’t want to bite on that one. But yes, there are some “furriners” who don’t use USD, imagine that!
Yes, because it’s all about providing you with free stuff and saving your time, no one else’s time is important.
I’m amazed that anyone would actually complain that they have to spend a couple extra minutes of their time here. “Sure, I would love to donate to charity, but I am too lazy to reach in my pocket and open my wallet, Could you do it for me?”
Getting very fed up with people demanding volunteers to expend their time to satisfy their little whims while contributing very little themselves.
No idea, unfortunately I don’t have any hooks into the CERN guys.
But I would be happy to write them a feedback email, as I had to find the right amount in CHF I was willing to spend in AUD.
Wasn’t possible to change that standard amount once I was in paypal, so had to cancel the first transaction.
Way better would be to be able to set the amount in the currency you have and let paypal/etc. do the conversion.
Showing the price for a developer per time in the currency of the browser locality would definitely help with that, but probably not be that important (while still being an interesting data point).
One has to select his own country in the form there anyway, shouldn’t be that hard for the website to take that information (ask for it as the first would be best) and use it for the currency right away.
And the PostFinance financial service provider, who does the money side of things can provide the exchange rate then and there.
Any other projects they fund via that will benefit from this as well, as it’s not just KiCAD on there.
And as I stated earlier, without a notice for paypal on that website I didn’t bother with it.
PS: I sent them a feedback email, but so far it bounced. Now had to send one to the IT dept of that server which also bounced… this will then be the 5th attempt to communicate with them, short of a phone call.
Making the donation process easier to understand for members in different parts of the world would not be a bad thing. I might have even donated and mentioned nothing; instead of coming here to question the process.
The great replies in this thread have been a help to my understanding of the current process.
But if the website were enhanced to attract and get 30 donations a month…
My initial look was that it was not 100% clear to me, and the information presented to me at the time made me stop the donation process and ask question about it here.
But, maybe you are right, maybe KiCad needs to provide it’s own funding page.
A post mentioned that KiCad had only two paid developers; are these CERN employees? And, is the US Fund going for KiCad development solely?
Update… finally got time to sit down and got white listed by their IT department, so could send an email to the donation email address on that website.
The response came 1 hour later
they’ve seen this thread and already worked out some changes
they try to get currency conversion worked into the website
Just for completion, as I was reading this thread (I know, I came late to the party ), I wondered on what those donation would be used, here is the link of the feature planned, so nobody needs to waste time .
I also find the way of donating at least “weird”.
CHF120 is simply too much for a lot of hobbyists to consider, and CHF is a pretty obscure currency from a very small country, even though it is almost in the middel of the EU.
For my gut feeling Swiss bank accounts are (still) almost synonymous for tax evasion and other shady buisiness.
Why not simply make a bank account number available from within the EU (transaction costs) for any amount hobbyists are willing to donate?
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