I had a thought today, and decided to “think out loud” here on the forum. I am curious about Renoise development timeframes and costs. Please keep in mind that while I know a bit of programming, I do not understand the timeframes or complexities involved of building on a complex piece of software like Renoise. Specifically, I do not understand what it takes to build a new feature into Renoise.
I am curious to know if it is possible to pay for the development of a new feature of renoise? Specifically, if you look at the cost in terms of man hours, has thought been given to allow someone to “purchase” the development of a new feature - by which I mean pay for the man hours it will take to develop, which will then be done as a priority?
I was thinking of this because my background is in e-commerce, and if a shopping cart software is not compatible with a certain payment gateway, you can often hire the company to build a module or other functionality - for a price.
In the case of renoise, perhaps the userbase could come together to provide funding for additional resources for the development of renoise to help have these features implemented more quickly.
In regards to development costs - I realize that Renoise is 49 Euro, not expensive by any stretch. There are obviously limited resources in terms of staffed developers to put into the project. Right now when a new feature is requested, I believe it is done based upon the number of registered users voting for a feature. This is good, but what about also adding a development cost factor and taking contributions?
For example, if it was determined that it would cost $5,000 worth of developer time to implement the new zoom feature for the advanced timing, and if you were to setup a donations page to work towards this goal, I believe some users may be willing to contribute towards this, which would allow renoise to be developed at a faster rate.
This is just a brainstorm, but Renoise has a very dedicated userbase, and I believe many long term users realize they have gotten more than their $49 worth. So if you were to set something like this up to let users see the costs towards development of new features, and let them contribute towards it - perhaps it could happen more quickly?
Just a thought!