Adopt a Keycap Legend with Cherry Replica Font! (Cherry font, not some other font)

[snowboarder3]

i see absolutely no reason why we should make it available to anyone who asks. as we agreed on before, the leaders of the cabal should have first say and be the signatories as far as SP is concerned, and we can determine on demand whether to honor requests for use of the legends.

example: a korean board would like to use our legends, but starts a group buy for keys that they _do not allow non-koreans to participate in_. that would be ridiculous and an abuse of our monetary contributions and other efforts.

Agreed. I'd argue that we don't gain anything by opening it, but do if we keep it closed with permission. Keeping it closed actually promotes cooperation between forums IMO.

[mbc]

Making it totally open would mean telling Melissa to let anyone who asks use them.  The consensus from earlier is that we don't want that.

what's the harm? as if access or tipro or any other company would be interested in these..
since this is a community effort it should be available to the whole community, and since anyone can register...

I mean even if ODT uses these who cares
or they appear on some random pos board, good, more boards with decent font
or melissa promotes the font, great, they stay longer in business

do you have an example of a possible downside to this?

i see absolutely no reason why we should make it available to anyone who asks. as we agreed on before, the leaders of the cabal should have first say and be the signatories as far as SP is concerned, and we can determine on demand whether to honor requests for use of the legends.
example: a korean board would like to use our legends, but starts a group buy for keys that they _do not allow non-koreans to participate in_. that would be ridiculous and an abuse of our monetary contributions and other efforts.

but we wouldn't lose anything
others gain != our loss

PS: there are currently way over 500! sets in current group buys, I dont think we rely on any other community if we want anything done

[jwaz]

Haven't the Koreans been fairly exclusive as far as their group buys go?

I don't think we should give them free rein over the use of our project but...

that being said they should be more than welcome to use it if they include us in their projects involving our legends in addition to future custom projects and group buys...

[hazeluff]

By not having it open, we can use it as leverage to get us some stuff from OTD/KBDMania.

Argh, I'm not in debating mode....zzzzz

[mkawa]

this was argued and i think decided pages ago. regardless, my vote is very firmly in the "give hazeluff and litster POC control, and let's vote on licensing case by case".

[hazeluff]

You're just gonna have to trust litster me and hash.

The other two have been here for ages. And all of us contribute here a lot. As we said earlier, it'll be very open to people here and limited to people outside.

[mtl]

what's the harm? as if access or tipro or any other company would be interested in these..
since this is a community effort it should be available to the whole community, and since anyone can register...

I mean even if ODT uses these who cares
or they appear on some random pos board, good, more boards with decent font
or melissa promotes the font, great, they stay longer in business

do you have an example of a possible downside to this?


but we wouldn't lose anything
others gain != our loss

PS: there are currently way over 500! sets in current group buys, I dont think we rely on any other community if we want anything done

I agree 100% with mbc. Restricting use of the molds merely promotes these exclusionary practices. It's better to lead by example than to stoop to the same pointless behavior.

[hazeluff]

I agree 100% with mbc. Restricting use of the molds merely promotes these exclusionary practices. It's better to lead by example than to stoop to the same pointless behavior.

We will pretty much let people use it if they ask, even those form other keyboard forums. But its safer that we keep it on the leash none the less.

People, go read the whole thread and all the discussions before bringing up a topic that we had concluded ages ago.

[Game Theory]

See page 7 for the start of the discussion  
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?28324-Adopt-a-Keycap-Legend-with-Cherry-Replica-Font!-(Cherry-font-not-some-other-font)/page7

[hazeluff]

Yeah, I'm being quite bitter.

But IIRC the conclusion before was.

Anyone using it for a GB, can come ask us for permission to use it and we will most likely grant it. We just didn't want people running off using our legends and doing whatever they please without even the courtesy of asking/crediting us.

[litster]

I think this is one of those things where we can defer the decision.  Let's get the first keycap set done first, then look at the resulting keycaps, look at how popular the group buy will be, and figure out what other keycap sets we all would like to do, and then we can decide.

The time frame could be like this: a month or so to collect all the adoption fees from all parents, and then another month or two to get the legends done, and done right.  Meanwhile we can get the group buy running at the same time for a few weeks, another couple weeks for payment collection, and then another 1.5 months for SP to make them.  And then another month or so for SP shipping, sorting, and more shipping.  it could be fall or later before we are done with the first group buy based on these new legends.  

We've got time :-)

[mbc]

Yeah, I'm being quite bitter.

But IIRC the conclusion before was.

Anyone using it for a GB, can come ask us for permission to use it and we will most likely grant it. We just didn't want people running off using our legends and doing whatever they please without even the courtesy of asking/crediting us.

wait .. what?
who is we and ours??

[hazeluff]

wait .. what?
who is we and ours??

I dunno, maybe you should read the thread.

We, being Litster, Hashbaz and I. As decided before.

Our being the community's legends.

[The_Ed]

wait .. what?
who is we and ours??

Bambi, ren, and stimpy of course. Who here remembers what bambi does after this?

[hashbaz]

mbc, we have every intention of letting other forums use these legends.  But we want it known that these are the geekhack legends, and like hazel said we can use them to further our relationship with the Korean forums.

As for the members of the steering committee losing interest in GH, I assure you that if that does happen, hazel, litster and I are responsible enough to pass control on to other responsible parties and communicate that to SP.

If these become so popular that SP wants to promote their use, we are always free to allow that later.

[mbc]

I just don't want this to blow up someday due to some personal or other bs.
this is still the internet, and there are a lot of projects that failed due to ownership etc.

Edit.

[hazeluff]

Thats why its controlled by 3 of us.

[mbc]

on a different note,
what about making the right alt key to an "Alt Gr",
not sure if it would have any effect on the final price for a complete set (beside the legend fees of course)
effect would obviously only be cosmetic, not sure if other people would like it too

[hazeluff]

That falls into the same category as ISO/other kits. Only if enough people want it.

[litster]

I am sure hazeluff could design it, and if someone adopts it, the legend will be made.  It would still need to be part of a group buy with enough demand to get the key made, otherwise it would be super expensive to make just 5 to 10 copies of it.

[Djuzuh]

Can't SP help with the cost? Since afterwards they will be able to sell this font to other customer, it might interest them.

It's not exactly a novelty key which will be unusable for them afterwards.

[litster]

Can't SP help with the cost? Since afterwards they will be able to sell this font to other customer, it might interest them.

How could they help?  They can't sell this font to other customers.

[Djuzuh]

hum, why can't they?

[litster]

hum, why would they?

[Djuzuh]

For the same reasons they are already proposing a few fonts to chose from.

[litster]

We own the font legend.  They can't let anyone else to use it without our permission.

[Djuzuh]

Yeah, but do we need to own the font legend ?

If they do a very good price reduction, isn't it in the interest of everybody to let them use the font too?

Now, sure the whole « Adopt a keycap legend » will make less sense, but still, if you get half price, or even less.

[Game Theory]

See page 7 in this topic for the start of a discussion on this particular topic and related ones.
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?28324-Adopt-a-Keycap-Legend-with-Cherry-Replica-Font!-(Cherry-font-not-some-other-font)/page7

[hazeluff]

Also SP aren't going to do any kind of price reduction. ==

[hashbaz]

I'm going to start accepting payments soon for the legend fees.

In case you missed it, the $10 per legend discount turned out to be a fantasy.  I'll be sending Melissa the SVGs soon to get quotes on how much they will be, but my guess is $35 each.  Hopefully everyone will stay the course, but if you're going to bail, please bail soon so we get an accurate idea of how much shortfall we'll be dealing with.

We'll be doing a few prototypes as well in the near future to proof the legends.  The Enter key prototype from my moogle kit buy should be done any day now.

[sth]

I assume that this will be part of a group buy for a new key set? If so I won't be able to afford that plus the cost of a new set until about 3weeks from now. Too many group buys coming up all at once!

[hashbaz]

The adoption collection will be separate from the key set group buy.

[jwaz]

SP, you need to give a us a discount, because if you don't, we will still order keycaps from you because you are the only game in town. So, give us a discount, or else.

[Zehkul]

Yeah, but do we need to own the font legend ?

If they do a very good price reduction, isn't it in the interest of everybody to let them use the font too?

Now, sure the whole « Adopt a keycap legend » will make less sense, but still, if you get half price, or even less.

See page 7 in this topic for the start of a discussion on this particular topic and related ones.
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?28324-Adopt-a-Keycap-Legend-with-Cherry-Replica-Font!-(Cherry-font-not-some-other-font)/page7

This actually hasn’t come up yet. If SP were to reduce prices, I’d say go for it — but I doubt they will. :-/

[litster]

Is there no chance that you can somehow play up how much business potential there is for them in this and get a legend discount?

We should try this:
"SP, you need to give a us a discount, because if you don't, we will still order keycaps from you because you are the only game in town.  So, give us a discount, or else."

Anyhow hash is in contact with SP to get this rolling and will give us update later.

[jwaz]

Yeah, you're right. Why bother.

[agor]

Any updates?

[hashbaz]

Any updates?

I'm busy wrapping up the moogle group buy right now, but after the order goes in I'll start accepting Cherry legend payments.  We're going to do a few prototypes to proof the legends as well.

Speaking of which, the Enter prototype for the moogle buy is done.  The key is en route to me now, here is Melissa's picture.  The arrow needs a little work.

[litster]

Guys, sorry for the inactivity in the last few weeks.  Good thing is we didn't waste any energy on posts and discussion that would have been ghrolled back.  :-)  I hope the ghroll back problem is over.

A couple updates.  First, legend fee is going to be $45 each, after checking with Melissa.  Second, hashbaz, Hazeluff, and I are wondering if you guys would be OK with sending in your adoption fees using personal checks.  Paypal is getting harder and harder to deal with.  Personal checks would be a good option and it would be free of Paypal's iron claw.  

Would you guys be oppose to personal checks?

[The_Ed]

I think everyone's still over at DT *****ing about the rollbacks...

[litster]

The_Ed, do you have a checking account?  Do you write checks to pay bills?

[hashbaz]

Guys, sorry for the inactivity in the last few weeks.  Good thing is we didn't waste any energy on posts and discussion that would have been ghrolled back.  :-)  I hope the ghroll back problem is over.

A couple updates.  First, legend fee is going to be $45 each, after checking with Melissa.  Second, hashbaz, Hazeluff, and I are wondering if you guys would be OK with sending in your adoption fees using personal checks.  Paypal is getting harder and harder to deal with.  Personal checks would be a good option and it would be free of Paypal's iron claw.  

Would you guys be oppose to personal checks?

Note that the $45 cost is new SP policy.  Formerly the legends were $25-$45 depending on size and complexity.  I sent Melissa a bunch of the Cherry font SVGs recently and asked her for legend fee quotes and she told me that they are moving to a flat $45 for all legends.  My guess is that the surge in GH group buys has something to do with this. :-/

Also note that besides Paypal limiting and otherwise threatening several group buy organizers' accounts in the last year, the IRS now requires them to report accounts that receive $20K or more through at least 200 transactions.  This has real tax implications for me and others.  It would be great if we could find another way to do large group buys.  Doing the legend fee collection, plus the moogle3 group buy and the Dolch group buy later on will definitely put me over $20K and 200 transactions.

[mkawa]

i'm fine with personal checks for this buy. also fine with proxying payments for people who can't do personal checks.

[rknize]

When did this policy start?  I will probably go well over $20k just doing R4.  :/

[hashbaz]

When did this policy start?  I will probably go well over $20k just doing R4.  :/

I believe the Paypal IRS reporting went into effect for fiscal year 2011.

[The_Ed]

The_Ed, do you have a checking account?  Do you write checks to pay bills?

I have a checking account. Both my checking and visa are tied to my paypal account. I've never written a check in my life though... It's gonna suck if future groupbuys require personal checks...

[The_Ed]

Why does the capslock in the OP not look like cherry or moogle?

[snowboarder3]

Maybe amazon payments would work? I have no way to write checks but I could do amazon/paypal to a proxy

[demik]

Just about any form of payment will have to answer to the IRS if it goes over 20k.

Only way around this would be multiple collectors.

[mkawa]

we already get kind of skirt around this just by having different gb coordinators for most gbs. at some point someone's just going to have to bite the bullet and start a paper LLC and do the accounting though.