Kicking Pinta in to High Gear
As people may or may not be aware, even though I work for Novell, Pinta is not sponsored by Novell. It is a project I do purely in my free time. Since it's getting kinda popular, I thought it'd be nice to earn some money with it so I can dedicate more time to it. Unfortunately, society has decided that creative works (software, music, movies, tv) aren't worth paying money for. So far, I think the only successful business model for open source software is to have a browser and sell your homepage to Google or Yahoo. I thought about adding a browser to Pinta, but it was hard to justify as enhancing the user experience. Advertising is the only other legitimate option, but I was reluctant to degrade the GUI by placing ads in it. However I've come up with a brilliant and creative idea that adds advertising in a fun way that I think users will enjoy. I am still working out the deals with advertisers, but the plan is to add sponsored effects. Basically, we've come up