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by kayoone 4600 days ago
The open source part of it is cool, but i still have a couple of issues with it:

+ why do you need 75K as a minimum ? Sounds a bit high, even for 2 people

+ They say its built with node, but what about the frontend of frontend ? Only jquery ?

+ does it support bootstrap or other layouting frameworks?

+ when will they let people contribute to it ?

Id really like something like this being open source, but in that case i feel it would need some more flexibility to be integrated into CMSes and Frameworks. Abstracted reusable components to plug it into existing systems, some kind of Content Repository integration for versioning etc. If thats the plan, ill fund in a heartbeat. If its meant just as a downloadable tool to built basic websites it wouldnt have much appeal to me though.

3 comments

Hey kayoone. Let's see:

1. The goal was set after carefully look other software project costs on Kickstarter. Also, 75k is the average income for a software engineer here in Silicon Valley (the living cost here is crazy);

2. The front-end of Frontend is built using AngularJS, our own JS Library, JQuery, JQuery-UI (just for the visual editor, not included on production projects), and QUnit/Jasmine.

3. It uses xtyle framework (also open-source) by default, but you can choose to use Bootstrap;

4. We will first open the Github repository for early backers. After the project is done the repository will be open for everybody else.

Integration with frameworks and CMS systems are on its way. We are planning to release a list of stretch goals for the project.

> Abstracted reusable components to plug it into existing systems,

The problem is stuffs like that are supposed to run in the browser, the more bloated your code base is the worst performances you'll get.

Doesnt mean everything should be tightly coupled, my point is no matter what people say web apps are not desktop apps, web apps are slow,sometimes you need to trade decoupling for performances.

I think the last time a product like that got kickstarted it "won" more that 100K , so of course people are going to seek a similar amount of money for these kind of projects, though i dont believe these tools are that usefull in reality.

It is a CMS in itself. How is 75k high for two people? Are they supposed to commit to living below the poverty line?
It's not just for two people.according to "Why crowdfunding?"

We are asking your help because we would want to give 100% focus to xchema frontend, and it is not possible by doing our daily jobs. With your support we will be able to afford renting a working space, work full-time, hire talents, and bring frontend to your hands.

They say its "An open source Photoshop replacement for web design" in which case it would be cool to integrate something like this into existing systems. Starting yet another CMS system from scratch doesn't sound like the best idea.
In which country living with $75k is living below the poverty line exactly?
As I understand it, that's for 2 devs. Subtract the Kickstarter fees, sending out the Kickstarter rewards, and various taxes, that leaves them with maybe $20k per person. Of course, that number is meaningless by itself, not knowing how long it will take them to complete the project. If they devote more than a year to the project, depending on where they live that's not a lot of income.
It's 75K for two people.

This is 32.5K each if we pretend Kickstarter didn't take any and there were no other expenses for the business.

Living wage for a single adult with no children in San Francisco is $26,692. For two adults with a kid its $50,186. http://livingwage.mit.edu/places/0607567000

SF is an expensive city, but so are most large cities in the world.

So yes, 75K for two people would be close to the poverty line. I'm surprised they're not asking for a lot more.

Developers have completely lost touch with what an average wage is for a single person family.