Has crowdfunding been considered as a method of compensating devs to port plugins to MM? For example, a dev could set a “bounty” for porting one or more plugins over. When that “bounty” is achieved, then the plugin is ported and the dev is compensated for it and any support to required to make it work correctly. 4ms could also kick in $$$ if they think certain plugins would increase sales and adoption of MM.
as an open source developer, Id say this is not viable, or likely to help much.
if the original module dev wanted to port, they could already find ways to fund this.
if a 3rd party wanted to port, they could work with the original dev to do this, including funding (and splitting the ‘profit’)
so this leave the 3rd option, an unauthorised port by a 3rd party.
which technically, may be possible due to license , however its kind of against open source principles.
the 3rd party would be profiting off the work a a dev that has (generously) put their work / code into the public domain. ( ** )
this just smells rotten, and its why most open source forks are free.
(and as a dev, Id be pretty upset if someone sold work that Id contributed into the public domain, even if the license technically allowed it)
( * ) I know you could argue, you are just paying for the porting effort…
but the reality is, end-users are paying because they want the end product, and 90% of the effort for that is from the original author.
… so frankly, its splitting hairs, to say what is being paid for.
also, for many licenses, the resulting port would have to be made free for everyone , otherwise the fee would be considered to be for product not the porting service.
other complications are ongoing support, if you just paid for the port - that feels like a one off fee… so if the original module is updated, its tricky to enforce the port to be updated - esp. as its an undefined amount of extra effort.
tl;dr;, I don’t think its practical, and I believe its right, that the port (or not) is at the discretion of the original module developer.
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I was only referring to a port from the dev and the IP owner, not anyone profiting off a dev’s IP. I know that a lot of VCV module devs are hobbyists that depend on donations for funding, so I thought this may enhance interest in supporting MM. I would be interested in hearing other opinions and from @danngreen about this idea.
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but, as I said, in that case, they already have ways to do this.
and I believe some MM modules have already been ported by 3rd party in co-operation with the original author. how/if money exchanges hands is between them.
anyway, there is nothing stopping a dev, doing a crowd funding initiative if that is there desire.
I do agree it would be nice to encourage devs to port more modules, and this has been discussed a few times on this forum incl here.
but money is not usually the driving factor for open source developers.
rather the way to attract them is to remove barriers/obstacles, which is what @danngreen is doing a great job of with 2.0 (and even prior)
I also believe 4ms also has donated some MM to devs to encourage devs, by removing the cost of entry.
however, that only really works if the developer is already into hardware modular, and unfortunately for many (users and devs) vcv is an low-cost alternative to hardware, so are not into it.
anyway, my experience on a different platform (Percussa) as a dev, is that users are pretty generous, assuming you do good work.
I created a number of modules for the SSP, and just accepted donations, and the more I delivered/release, naturally, the more donations I got.
(and yes, Percussa were the most generous of all 
)
as I was doing it in my free time, I much preferred having this ‘informal’ approach. there is no way, I would have taken money to create/port a particular module (I have been asked many times), because you then have to commit fully, and also start running into issues associated with user expectations/managment.
(something Ive no issue in my job as a developer, but not something I want for my ‘hobby’ ;))
All your points are most understandable, especially the fact that amplified user expectations may decrease the enjoyment of doing this.
PS, is your XMX stuff ready for release? I was considering buying one and saw you’d done some modules for that too.
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yeah, the issue with expectations is there are many ways to design a module, and once you start taking money, (some) users will have an expectation of what/how it should work (and some wont match yours as a dev)
ofc, its less an issue with porting, as the original module defines its feature set/behaviour, that said, users could still have certain expectations over performance etc.
that’s why its easier to sell, or take donations for something thats ‘done’, as its feature set is defined - so users ‘know’ what they are getting.
xmx, it was ‘done’ but then, I found an issue with the latest Juce release that Im using for the UI - I’ve fixed that issue, however, it needs to be applied to all (32?) modules, and then I need to do regression testing for them all.
before I found the issue, I was pretty motivated to get it done - but the fix took me a while to find, and kind of knocked the wind out of my sails.
just need to kick myself into action 
(in fairness, the bits left to do, whilst very important are a bit ‘monotonous’ from a dev standpoint)
It was just an idea to stimulate app porting and development that does not involve setting up a store with all of its complications.
sure, I get that, and indeed its good to have discussion about how to stimulate these activities. however, ofc, the point of a discussion forum, is to discuss both sides - including problems etc - hence my response.
as I said, I do think, dan/4ms are going the right way, making the porting easy/accessible and also supporting more vcv features. will encourage developers.
with open source projects, its often the case that…
“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink”
anyway, MM pluging dev is looking very promising,
and I will also say, as a dev, Im waiting for 2.0 to be released, as it includes many things I want for module development including midi output, direct draw.
sure ,I could start coding with a dev version, I prefer to work on a released codebases.
(it’s not like I don’t have other projects to work on in the meantime )