Maybe you haven't noticed, but I happen to love TYPOlight and am very enthusiastic about furthering the system. I've tried many different content management systems and have yet to find one with the feature set, attention to detail and active involvement from the developer.

While I don't know all the details about our fearless leader, Leo Feyer, I do know that he spends at least 6 hours per day developing the system, communicating in the forum and furthering the documentation. He is also very busy working on other projects and building his hosting / consulting business - iNetRobots. In a recent e-mail, Leo mentioned that he hopes TYPOlight will grow enough in the next 2 - 4 years to where the donations and custom development requests will be enough to support him.

[[i]cue the emotionally charged, patriotic music[/i]]

To ensure that Leo's dedication and commitment does not wane, it is paramount that the community do all it can to support him and help him achieve this goal. If we build websites for profit, it is important that a portion of the proceeds be given to Leo. If we build websites for personal use and friends, it is also important that we give back. Looking at the time one saves when developing a new site with TYPOlight versus building a static html site is incentive enough for me. Every time I click the "update files" button, it saves me a few hours and lots of problems from the traditional method of updating a web application.

So what am I trying to say?
To ensure that Leo remains heavily involved in developing and supporting TYPOlight, we need to donate accordingly, based on the benefit the system provides us. How much should we donate? This is a question that will be different for everyone. For commercial websites that we are paid a fee to create, a donation of 50€ - 250€ would be fantastic. For personal websites, showing one's appreciation through a 10€ - 25€ donation would be great. These are simply suggestions and I'm sure Leo will greatly appreciate any financial contributions. Maybe my numbers are a bit optimistic, although I think they are reasonable.

Although the community is still very small and may not be able to support such a campaign, I eventually want to start a thread entitled "Help buy Leo a laptop" or something along those lines. Let me know if you think I am wrong and that the community can already take on something like this!

Still waiting to get the big check in from your client so you can donate?
In the meantime, send Leo 5€ and buy him a beer!

Make a donation through the "Support TYPOlight" box in the left column - http://www.typolight.org.
Currency exchange rates can be calculated at http://www.xe.com.

I would love to donate money to Leo. I am just having a hard time convincing my bosses that it's something that should be done. If all else fails I may just donate out of my own pocket.

Hi Ben, I agree with your sentiments. I probably wouldn't have been so direct but then again I am English (saves me being responsible for my behaviour )

I have already done what you suggested and donated to Leo after my first payment. I have also paid for hosting through iNetRobots. Partly to help and partly because it seemed like a smart idea to host with the guy that develops the software I am primarily using.

all the best

Mark

Ben

I totally agree with you, that's why today I just create my paypal account...

Regards

Maybe Leo can think about a kind of premium membership for people using TL in a commercial environment. I would be happy to join and pay a monthly (or yearly) fee. I would not even aspect more premium service because the "service" is already premium :-) It would just make it easier with my tax consultant and the fiscal authorities. Donations are often seen in a twilight but a website membership is no problem at all. All I need is a paypal document saying I paid the amount XY for a membership...
What do You guys think..?

Fabster,

I've run into this same issue with properly accounting for my donations. I end up classifying them as 'software licenses', which my accountant says is kosher. That's in the US, though. I think you are in Germany.

Personally, I prefer make a donation for each commercial site that I complete instead of having a subscription. This way, if business is good for me, Leo is compensated accordingly. Maybe Leo can add some 'donation products', such as this:
--> 50€ - personal site
--> 100€ - small business site
--> 200€ - business site
--> 500€ - enterprise site

These prices are just for example. I'm not really sure how much anyone is donating. Do you think this system would help everyone out with accounting?

Hi Fabster,

I am looking forward to my first "tl driven" customer site. It is a small company with a small site, but I told them, that they have to pay for it. Not really much (50€), but they have to. I am not shure, how I will handle this with my taxes, but I think it should be no problem: It will be part of my bill as "operating costs" and as soon as I receive the money it will be transfered to Leo.

Best would be, Leo could offer bills for that. This would ease a lot. But it should not end in bureaucratic overflow for Leo. Maybe he can create a paypal article "TypoLight Fee", where I can enter a value depending on the planned amount. Printing the PayPal bill should be enough.

This is a quite spontaneous idea - any comments welcome.

Greetings,

NoSi

Hi guys,

if you do need an invoice for your donations please contact me via e-mail before you donate.

Regards
Leo

This sounds very good :-)

I think I will not make a donation for every project but make one every 2-3 projects so Leo does not have too much hassle with all the invoices. Making websites is not our main and only business so this would end up in 3-4 invoices per year...

leo:

if you do need an invoice for your donations please contact me via e-mail before you donate.

Imho all ports to show Leo our appreciation are wide open now. I appreciate the idea of collecting a few projects into one bill. This reduces the paperwork on both sides,...

Greetings
Nosi

Leo,

From a tax / business standpoint, is it better to send you a PayPal donation or to buy products from your template shop? Maybe there is no difference.

If there is no difference, I may start making donations by purchasing templates. This way, I'll have a receipt from the shop for my tax / business purposes.

Here's an even easier way to support TYPOlight: visit some of the Google ad sponsor sites. Don't get too crazy, but visiting links of interest will certainly help Leo out financially.

Ben:

If there is no difference, I may start making donations by purchasing templates. This way, I'll have a receipt from the shop for my tax / business purposes.

That's a fantastic idea. I donated "the hard way" (from my pocket, without an invoice), but I can't do that for all my projects. Your idea on the other hand gives me a perfect solution, because I get a regular invoice.

I hope to finish a lot of Typolight projects and if it helps Leo developing this great system, I'll gladly support him this way.

hmm... interesting ideas. For me right now I cannot use PayPal in my country since PayPal banned it after US sanctions however I am going to Singapore to pursue Marketing degree in next year so I think I can use by then.

I already have an idea to recontribute reasonable proportion of my development fees back to Leo. My rate is between $10 ~ $15 per hour (and I also work with fixed flat fee) and I am thinking of re-contributing a few percentages (though not knowing how much yet). My company also contributes 5% of gross revenue as a fund for charity works. We donate them annually or semi-annually to charities and other non-profit organizations.

Hey, let's start a Facebook campaign. And we should invite web developers and designers on Facebook. How is it? This would greatly improve brand awareness of Typolight as well as make handling a financial support campaign easier. I can start immediately if you guys are on the same boat.

Sam

I notice that Typolight has a copyright notice generated at header of template files and it cannot be removed even if we design our own custom template.

How about a small fee to remove that copyright notice? This could be another option of financial stream too.