CastaBlasta Season Finale + LAS
Tomorrow, July 3rd, we will be recording the next episode of the Linux Action Show starting at 5:30pm Pacific Time.
Immediately following that we will be recording the season finale of CastaBlasta at 7pm Pacific Time.
All, of course, with live video and live chat. Good times will be had by all.
For this episode of the Linux Action Show, we would love to get some audio feedback to play during the show. I know many of you have disagreed with some of the things we’ve said in the last few episodes (on Mono, the FSF, Fedora, etc.) … well now is your chance to be heard! Head on over to the Jupiter Broadcasting Contact page for info on how to send us an audio message (phone, skype and google voice are all available).
Think we’re crazy? Think we’re just plain wrong? Or, perhaps, you think we’re the smartest chaps on the whole darn plannet? Either way, speak up!
I’ll be keeping people posted via Twitter tomorrow as show-time approaches.
Bollywood He-Man = Awesome
This is a clip from the 1989 Bollywood film “Nafrat Ki Aandhi” staring Amrish Puri (who played Molo Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).
Molo Ram singing and dancing? That, alone, is enough to justify the price of admission for this flick.
But this scene… it is a singing, dancing, He-Man. Complete with Orko. I kid you not.
An Eternal Struggle
Commercial -> Donations -> Commercial
Just about a month ago the Radical Breeze apps were made free. The goal being to try and fund their continued development via donations.
The results were… less than ideal. In fact, there have been a total of 3 donations to date. Obviously this isn’t exactly enough to fund development of any kind in a realistic way.
At this point I have proven to myself that substantial development can be funded via a “shareware” style model for Linux applications. Perhaps not “gonna make us all mega rich” levels of funding, but certainly enough to cover costs and make it doable.
Here’s the thing:
At the current rate of donations, not only does the development progress need to almost completely cease (as it is not enough to cover more than, say, one hour of time) but it no where near covers other costs (simple things like hosting fees, hardware, etc.).
Prior to switching to the donation model, enough sales were happening on a regular basis to make it reasonable to have a fairly rapid stream of updates with new features and bug fixes.
It’s all a mater of logistics and basic practicality. If you are a professional software developer as a day job, with a house and a family… you simply do not have time to code anything beyond the most trivial of projects in your spare time.
In order to accomplish something like this, a developer needs to choose between tasks. Mow the lawn… or fix a bug? Spend time with the family… or add a small feature? Some of this can be handled if there is some form of income available (for example: Software brings in money, so hire someone to mow the lawn. Or maybe it brings in enough income that a wife or husband can stop working their job to do more things around the house to free up time).
So.
At this point I feel somewhat satisfied that I have an idea of what is possible and likely with a few various business models in relation to Linux-specific software development (based on my experiences so far combined with feedback from many of you and observations of the results of others in related endeavors).
But I enjoy development. And I like these applications, and want to continue the development goals that I have planned for them.
Here’s what’s happening:
- All applications are back to being commercial and are going to stay closed source for the foreseeable future.
- The price of RadicalCodex, Radical Comic Designer and DoThisNow are now all just $10. Simple. Affordable.
- Those three people that donated? I’ll get you guys licenses to all of the apps. You guys are awesome and definitely deserve a bit of a high-five. If you find yourself in the greater Seattle area, the first beer is on me.
- To get things properly kick started again, I’ll be rolling out some feature upgrades to all three applications.
This has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride, and now it’s timet o settle down, set the business model in stone, and just focus on a steady stream of updates.
Transformers 2 - I mean. WHOAH.
Went to see Transformers 2 last night (show got out around 1am) with Chris and Jeremy (from CastaBlasta) and my lady.
It was… insane. Two and half solid hours of, primarily, robot fighting.
And I loved damn near every second of it.
Sprinkled throughout were little homages to the original series and movie, plus it kept much of the concepts from the original (energon, space bridges and the matrix of leadership). I know, I know. It’s a all based on a cartoon made to sell robot toys that turned into vehicles. But, still, for those of us that grew up on the original Transformers cartoons (three seasons plus the animated movie) that lore holds a special place in our hearts.
I wish I could express how much I enjoyed this movie.
It was rediculous. It was over the top. It was cheesy.
And it was awesome.
It was so awesome that I do hereby forgive Michael Bay for any other movie he may have made (or may yet make) that, let’s just say, I didn’t like quite so much.
What blows my mind, though? Metacritic has it listed as a 37 / 100 (which is a lower score than such stellar films as Hannah Montana: The Movie, Fast and Furious 4 and Dance Flick). Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 22%. I’m thinking they either didn’t see the same movie as me… or they’re all 47 year old women who think “robots are confusing” and would rather watch something on ABC Familly.
I’m just going to say this once:
If you are a nerd. If you are a geek.
If you like robots. If you like robots fighting.
Hell. If you were alive in the 1980’s…
… Then you will enjoy this movie.
