Haiku Inc. Contracts Ingo Weinhold, Discloses Donations

Haiku Inc., the non-profit organization that supports the Haiku Project, has announced that they have hired renowned Haiku developer Ingo Weinhold on a limited time contract. At the same time, Haiku Inc. also disclosed a breakdown of the donations received by the non-profit via PayPal in the last six months. One of the tasks that Ingo may be undertaking during this contract period is the coordination of the R1/Alpha 2 release, bringing hope that the long-awaited second development release may in fact be coming in the near future.

Ingo Weinhold – one of the most prolific developers that the Haiku project has – will put 160 hours of development work in the areas of kernel and related subsystems, as well as testing and improvement of Haiku's POSIX compliance. Coordination of R1/Alpha 2 release is also one of the tasks to be performed during the contract, but this will depend on whether the decisions that the development team needs to take relative to the next development release can be reached in a timely manner. Hopefully, this weekend's BeGeistert event, which brings most of the Haiku developers together under the same roof, will provide the opportunity for the development team to make the decisions that will bring about the Alpha 2 release.

On the same announcement, Haiku Inc. disclosed a breakdown of all the donations received via PayPal during the October 2009 through March 2010 six month period. According to this disclosure, a total of US$3,132.18 were raised during this period, with recurring (subscription-like) donations accounting for about one third of the total. What's newsworthy is the fact that of the more than US$2,000 raised as one time donations, more than half was received in the month of February alone. Which comes as no surprise, as this is around the time when Haiku Inc. announced contracting another core developer, Stephan “Stippi” Aßmus, to work on a new webkit-based native browser for Haiku, as clear goals make a great incentive for donors to open up their wallets. Stephan's contract was actually extended and is still ongoing, and it has yield great results in the form of a modern native browser called WebPositive (development site and nightly builds) that is quickly shaping up to live up to the standards of performance, simplicity and usability that all Haiku users have come to expect.

Haiku Inc. also noted in their announcement that work is being done to setup a Google Checkout account which will allow making donations using a credit card. This expands the number of choices for donors, so it is a good addition. For those not familiar, Haiku Inc. also accepts donations by check or money order (have to be payable in US dollars).

All in all, Haiku Inc. seems to be doing a much better job of playing its role of supporting the Haiku Project and communicating with the community. And the benefits are becoming visible, both in the tangible results coming from the developers being contracted, but also from the increased funding that ensues from it. I have been a critic of the non-profit in the past, mainly due it lack of proactive involvement and of communication with the Haiku community. But I am happy to admit that I like very much what I see now, and I would like to commend all those involved for the work they are doing.