Why don't you build it first and if it gets popular then ask for donations?

What about the open source projects you're building on top of? Are you going to give any of those programmers some money?

> Yes. We're starting with the critical bit - the client - out in the open in JS w/ off-the-shelf open-source. Needs many eyes.

Frankly, I'm sick of people jumping on the "open-source" bandwagon and diverting resources from those who truly deserve it or who have a track record in the field they are asking funds for.

You know, people like Stallman and Torvalds took risk and bore the opportunity cost of spending time to build things they believed in and had passion for.

It seems too many of todays entrepreneurs are afraid of taking risk and want to pass it onto the public. I especially dislike what App.net did, conning people into giving money to build a closed source platform and then selling part of that company to venture capitalists.