If we ask for donations, much less people will download, and nobody will talk about Elive on internet
If we don't, the financial support of Elive is null and we cannot continue the development
The point is: is needed to find a way, to still offering Elive for free in order to solve the first point, and to still have something that the people would like to donate/pay for.
Some ways that can do that:
32-bit version free, 64-bit from donation
32-bit version free, 64-bit via patrons only
similar, 64-bit version only available for the patrons (monthly support by users)
release the versions 1 month before from patreon, and so 1 month later publically
give elive totally free, but cannot invest the full time work on it (so like a hobbie instead of a full time work)
For now what I think that can work and don't have a negative impact is to give the Bookworm based build only available for privileged users, and see how it goes... but how to announce releases? build them based on bullseye and only for privileged based on bookworm? mmh... not sure, but for now I added a call-to-action banner in the downloads page: Elive - Beta Download - check it
We can see how many people joins it... but for now, let's talk about what is the more descriptive / convincing words to use for the banner:
Title:
Last Builds and Features, only for a few!
Last Features, only for a few!
Get the last versions, only for a few!
Be privileged, get the last features!
0voters
Body
too long option, write your entire suggestion in a comment instead
Button
Be Privileged
Obtain Benefits
Be the first
Join our community
Level Up
Improve your OS
Get it
0voters
.
.
Note: this thread is not for debate the actual page or the financial support of Elive (there can be other threads for that), but just for the ways that can convince more the people to join the Elive support
Wow I have no words, today I wake up and found this message by @linux23dragon. I have these last months been thinking on stopping to continue making Elive because it became totally unsustainable and now I read this message, which can literally save Elive.
My next step was to send a newsletter to all the users asking them of joining patreon because otherwise Elive can't continue, and I don't think there's anything wrong by sending a newsletter like that which is in fact something really needed (similar to how wikipedia does it every X months), on the other hand I need to be cautelous on how to write it / what to say, for example: I want to be transparent making understand the real problem and the important need of financial support, but I don't show it like it is begging which could make a feeling of unworth, or: I want to say how much is needed, but I don't want to make it look like elive is going to die in 3, 2, 1 (which in the other hand can make people react, because is only "when is too late that people cares"), also in a similar way many projects had much more attention after the founder decided to stop the project. Anyways I still need to think how to write it.
Some actual details:
Elive 3.8.34 has been released now correctly and published in distrowatch and so then, in many other websites too. There have been more than 1k downloads, but only 2 donations was received from them (donations average value is 7,5 usd), unfortunately this happens when you "don't force a bit" the people to donate (by this I mean things like adding an incentive like the delayed downloads, since Elive never wanted really to restrict anybody to use it), now that I added back that incentive, a few donations are coming
note: they are now much more simple to use, instead of giving free-by-email the 32-bit, and the 64-bit only from donations, now the page shows as in the Stable version: a simple 2-options to download, by donation or by waiting 1 hour, 64bit version included
The donations received in the past (patreon + downloads by donation) was around 300-400 usd per month. I'm actually living in colombia since the start of the pandemic and one of the main reasons that I still here is because is much cheaper to live here (and europe became even more expensive now, and barcelona is like 1k usd per month to rent a simple room in a shared apartment), here I pay 200 usd per month for a pretty nice room with a big space and I spend another 200 for the food, that's like the very minimal price of living here.
Because of the previous points, I found that continue making Elive is simply unsustainable, "too much work involved and almost no income. On what im spending my time which im going backwards economically?". While on the other hand I was just "continue making Elive, and living from savings every day". In the last months I wrote a tool which sends me an email based on the calculation of donations received the previous day where it removes the "amount for living", if the number is positive the email is motivational like saying "you earned that, enjoy your day", if the number is negative it says "bad boy, no party today, work more"... at the first it was motivational to receive these emails, but in the last time it was quite depressing to see every day being in negatives (which in my brain was like "another amount removed from savings, which are decreasing every day")
In the end, thinking why the actual situation of Elive went so low I see that is because:
The website needs to show the elive features, because it has many and the people don't knows them, so the users thinks that elive is nothing more than a debian built with enlightenment installed and nothing more (duh) - @triantares may disagree on some things related to the website but this is something I have very clear in my mind
Elive was very good when it started and it stayed like that more or less, until Elive 3.0, after that version (the best one) we used the E16 desktop (which is really good) but Elive lost a lot of interest due to things that were not possible to being implemented, Elive stopped to be so unique and special. The use of E16 was meant to be temporal and I simply was not able to start working on the new desktop because the amount of work needed were very big
In the last year Elive has been "out of public activity" (development happens inside but nothing viewed from outside, lack of social media posts and news and releases and all that), and the retrowave version distracted so much the normal releases, even worse, I suffered from a serious health problem 2 years ago which put me in a pretty useless state for more than one year, I never mentioned this before and the story is even quite surreal.
The release of a "good" stable version didn't happened for long time because depends of a better desktop implementation which as mentioned before, requires a good amount of work, unfortunately this had a very negative impact in Elive in the last time.
Don't worry @Thanatermesis , I will pay as soon as I retrieve my investments end of next month.
It's a good idea to write a letter to everyone about financial support, as it will give them more options to support Elive. Patron is new to Elive and the word needs to spread about it.
Yes I will prepare this newsletter, maybe I should wait for september to send it (so donations for this release has been really few, maybe because we are in "holidays"?)
In the meantime, I will try toincentivize more the Patreon promotion and "privileged users" concept, for example: Elive - Beta Download - there was the big call-to-action added, and now I have also added a countdown for the Bookworm feature (average timing) , I think in the end of the sentence must be also mentioned "for how long" , for example:
Average time remaining to finish the full migration to a Debian Bookworm base, only available for Leveled UP users first
to:
Average time remaining to finish the full migration to a Debian Bookworm base, only available for Leveled UP users for the first 3 months
I would call that "3 months early access for ...." and maybe "early access for testing" for those who want to try.
The latter will thus not only be a perk but also an extra option to participate.
I just added in elive-news a feature to show a popup every time there's somebody joining the Patreon, with a button to click and join it too, trying to motivate more people to join it too, it looks like this:
Since this forum category is about Communication , is there suggestions for the wording used to be more motivating / convincing?
Note: I will still need to write and send a massive newsletter to the users telling them that the Elive support needs to increase in order to continue making Elive
Elive is for me the only system Im prepared to use. Im one year off getting a small pension. I wont be able to pay much but I will happily pay a monthly fee if I can budget for it. At present I have zero income and we survive on €300 a month. My Army pension was cut because the cost of fees was more than than the pension. My country had 785% inflation. I think its now at 77% a month.
I would be lost without Elive
Im really well thanks. Not had time to turn the computer on for months. It needed 335 updates when I used it this week. Ive been converting my old workshop into a man cave.
)
, I think in the end of the sentence must be also mentioned "for how long" 
