The first time I ever saw a lemur was while doing the World's Fair Trail hike in Boy Scouts in preparation for my troop's trip to Philmont. It was humping, or getting humped, I forget which I saw first, (the male or the female (or was it simultaneous?) It was January and the World's Fair Trail winds through Forest Park in St. Louis. In Forest Park is the St. Louis Zoo. We made it a point to hit every house in the park to get warm on that cold drizzly day in the winter of 1983 - 84. (We did Philmont in the summer of 1984.) This included the Primate House and yup, we got to see lemurs getting it on. Of course, being an adolescent boy, this was forever etched in my memory. I am not sure if this is the first time I had ever seen actual copulation, but it was close, so it was indelibly etched. That being said, when I came back with my freshman Biology 1 class in the spring, (I studied the baboons in that very same Primate House,) I was amazed to see a new baby! AWESOME! I am not sure about the gestation period, it may have been coincidence. I don't care. Lemurs have forever been special for me. So when Mike Lee brought his attitude, his opinionated writing, his genius and his love of lemurs to the indie dev community, I was hooked.
This brouhaha over MacHeist is unfortunate. After having read Mike Lee's post on the matter and rescanned it and then again, I think the brouhaha is extra unfortunate. But alas, since I first read it, he addenda'd it and then addenda'd'd'd'd'd'd'd'd it again to be a little more reasonable. At least in my opinion. Which is good.
So now, a whole thread of my post is moot. Sigh. Well, here is some info on my participation in MacHeist. Besides buying the bundle, I also gave away an unlimited number of copies of Hana for a decent payment from MacHeist. (Hana was not a part of the bundle.) What did I lose? Potential sales? Some in the short term, but not a lot. As a converting to indie developer, I have a day job. I spend most of my awake time preparing for, going to, being at, lunch at, driving home from and briefly recovering from that day job which does something that Hana does not. Pay the bills. So MacHeist is paying some of my bills. For that I love Phill Ryu & Company!
But before I agreed to put Hana in MacHeist, I admired Phill for putting together a fantastic app called MacHeist. MacHeist seems to enthrall thousands of people to do the challenges for free software and that we developers are willing to chuck some bones his way, in return for some back our way is simply business. Just as free iPhone giveaways do not cheapen the iPhone, neither does this cheapen our wares. Right now there are several times as many Hana users as there was before MacHeist. When Hana 2.0 is released this spring, I hope to score some sales I would not have otherwise scored without MacHeist.
What do we indie developers need? We need exposure. We need mentoring. We need support. Promotions? Nice, but if our apps are missing something, the effect is dramatically weakened or even negated. What would be nifty would be for the top 10-20 members of our Mac indie community to get together in this "mad" scheme to "empower" us. I would like to see these folks randomly grouped in groups of three or so to coach, critique and eventually review and promote an app. It could all be done publicly and at the end of the process when the app is finally done and released it could be sold at full price or part of a bundle, but with x% going to the lemurs, y% going to the promo to cover costs and provide a small stipend to the celebrity coaches and the remainder goes to the indie developer.
While us newb indie developers are being coached, our experienced brethren are having their apps reviewed, critiqued and receiving some recommendations as well and maybe they too are included in bundles or just featured periodically on a central site.
I kinda think of this as another My Dream App type of entertainment type thing. A reality type show where developers get the help they need, the users get apps they need and our community is stronger for it. Think of it as the Living the Indie Dream show! :-)
So who is up for Living the Indie Dream? Is this "Mad" enough? Mike? Phill? Use the contact form to reach me or if you must: indiedream @ this site's domain.
Mad thanks to Mike for writing a provocative post and for Phill for MacHeist. You two rock!