One of my students told me Armbian no longer accepts donations.

 

Indeed, I see a 'Subscriptions' section, but no longer a Donations link. It's been a while since I looked. When 'subscribing' I guess one could uncheck the automatic renewal, but would that cause trouble for Armbian expecting continuing income? Or should one make the subscription and then cancel?

 

I always encourage my students to support Armbian. I have no clue how many actually have, but feedback is that they would like to make a one-time donation and not a 'subscription.' I dig the subscription idea, but I think Armbian should  also have a one time donation link even if it only gets used now n then.

 

But I would spend a LOT of money to be Armbian 'certified' ;]

It's on the main page, it would be good to have it on the forum too.
https://www.armbian.com/

on the forum.. There's "Donations" from under the store menu.   Its a bit vague..  The forum software is a little quirky.. A lot of the menu bar stuff are plugins and they're kind of e-commerce oriented.

4 hours ago, Technicavolous said:

I always encourage my students to support Armbian.

 

That's super awesome.   Out of curiousity, what do you and you students do with armbian?  and what kind of hardware generally?

 

On 3/30/2019 at 8:20 PM, Technicavolous said:

Indeed, I see a 'Subscriptions' section, but no longer a Donations link. It's been a while since I looked. When 'subscribing' I guess one could uncheck the automatic renewal, but would that cause trouble for Armbian expecting continuing income?

I have read a this https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18197267-don-t-make-me-think-revisited which is only enough to be aware of such UX problems and perhaps to fix the most obvious ones. 

 

Donations are on a beer level and rear - we can't fund any(thing) with it and project is already very expensive to run. Hiring UX agency (or any other professional help) is very limited, mainly out of the reach.

On 3/30/2019 at 7:45 PM, lanefu said:

 

That's super awesome.   Out of curiousity, what do you and you students do with armbian?  and what kind of hardware generally?

 

Check out out http://tech-party.us -- we do a lot of digital, robot, ham radio stuff. When anyone brings in a board we see if Armbian supports it. We've had a few Armbian presentations, the best was one we did on armbian-config to install ISPConfig and then Wordpress from ISPConfig.

 

On 3/31/2019 at 4:45 PM, Igor said:

Donations are on a beer level and rear - we can't fund any(thing) with it and project is already very expensive to run.

I imagine donations are unreliable income. BUT ... (here it comes ...)

 

I would spend $200 for a basic Armbian Certified Technician and another $200 - 300 to become an Armbian Certified Engineer.  This could all be done on a server running Moodle or other courseware. Upon completion the student would get a Certificate that would be useful for technicians to prove their abilities with SBCs. It could probably be derived from one of many courses out there on basic linux and enhanced for Armbian.

 

This would be an incredible undertaking but once done would provide a lot of income for the project. It would help the entire community (or the actively engaged users) to get better with Armbian and its documentation. Once done it wouldn't be that hard to maintain until Armbian had a major update.

 

Think this is crazy? Take a look 'round the net and find how many organizations sell certifications. 

 

Who else has done this? Seriously, Armbian could set the standard. ACSBCT/E - Armbian Certified Single Board Computer Technician / Engineer ... wow ;]

 

Who on earth would be interested in such a thing? I would, but I'm one of those guys who loves being certified in things. Professionals certify in technologies to set themselves aside from their competition. Think anyone is making a living on SBCs? If not yet someone will be soon. I've set up two real companies using only SBC's - am I the only one?

 

Start off inexpensive and basic, build content and reputation, raise prices and set the standard. Armbian can do it.

 

I subscribed, but what can $5 do for you? Maybe ... $25 for a Tinkerboard basic technician certification. $50 for a ClearfogPro Armbian Server Cert. Or basic courses and endorsements for different boards. Add up a handful of certs for a course and there's a certified tech ...  I think just the existence of such material would create interest. I bet a bunch of Armbian members would take the courses just to support Armbian.

 

11 minutes ago, Technicavolous said:

I would spend $200 for a basic Armbian Certified Technician and another $200 - 300 to become an Armbian Certified Engineer.  This could all be done on a server running Moodle or other courseware. Upon completion the student would get a Certificate that would be useful for technicians to prove their abilities with SBCs. It could probably be derived from one of many courses out there on basic linux and enhanced for Armbian.

 

This would be an incredible undertaking but once done would provide a lot of income for the project. It would help the entire community (or the actively engaged users) to get better with Armbian and its documentation. Once done it wouldn't be that hard to maintain until Armbian had a major update.

 

Think this is crazy? Take a look 'round the net and find how many organizations sell certifications.  

 

I don't think it's crazy, but I don't think you have a good read on the current state of the project.    Even the founder cannot work on the project full-time.     It's probably a stretch to focus on course curriculum over technical debt.

 

Since you seem to have a background in instruction, I'd be glad to spend some one on one time with you to help you understand the platform, if you'd be willing to capture, distill and contribute back to our documentation.