Open Source Kickstarter Report Card (Updated)

[Peter W A Wood]

There have been quite a few comments and clearly a number of different views amongst members of the community. I would like to add my perspective.

The LiveCode Kickstarter campaign was very unusual in that the LiveCode could fulfil all of the rewards without actually having to complete the project. The rewards consisted of gifts and existing LiveCode products.

In one sense, LiveCode completed the Kickstarter campaign when all the rewards had been delivered. I’m sure that Kickstarter would take this view.

LiveCode kept to the biggest promise it made, LiveCode has been open-sourced under the GPL and is freely accessible on Github.

That leaves the other promises made during the Kickstarter campaign. Some made initially, some made as stretch goals. I have no doubt that these promises were very genuine. Clearly, LiveCode hasn’t been able to deliver them in the time they expected. This could be to any number of causes; under estimating and resources not being available being the most likely.

To their great credit, the LiveCode team still appears to be committed to meeting its Kickstarter promises even though the funds raised to do so must have run out a long time ago.

My concern is that it is human nature to push promises made a long time ago to the back of our minds. If my report card serves any purpose, it is simply to keep the promises in view. 

I would like the promises to be kept. However, if LiveCode were to give a reasonable explanation (with an apology) why a promise could no longer be met, I would accept it given that I got my rewards, LiveCode has been open-sourced, and many of the “feature” promises have been met. 

Peter

PS Does anybody still think it is worth LiveCode supporting Windows 8 Phone?