Linux Mint on Kickstarter?

[zeehond]

This is a very non-technical question to Mint Team, it's just an idea that could be worth discussing.

First I must say I'm deeply pleased with Linux Mint (after some rather frustrating Ubuntu experience) and want it to grow and get better.
Just donated $100 for the cause.

On the funding question, the website says this:

We believe Linux Mint can gather the momentum and the community necessary to fund itself entirely through donations, sponsoring and advertisement without the need to engage in commercial activities and without focusing our attention on anything else than improving the distribution itself. Our goal is to get to the stage where the staff behind Linux Mint isn't just giving some spare time, but paid and committed to work solely on the project, not just as a hobby but also as a full time job.

But donations alone don't seem to keep you afloat, and the duck-duck-and-go thing just doesn't smell ethically right (though their funding must have been important for Mint).

Now I wonder, why do you guys don't present your idea on Kickstarter.
There has been one pretty lame effort to date.
I'm pretty sure Linux Mint could easily collect say $100,000 in funding on Kickstarter to make next Mint release even smoothier. Or even more.

[xenopeek]

Hi, interesting suggestion. Having a read on the kickstarter guidelines (http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines), I think this would be a good fit if something specific is wanted by users to be developed for Linux Mint. See this bit from the guidelines:

1. Funding for projects only.

A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project.

[zeehond]

Any of the upcoming releases could qualify for such a project.
The actual priorities are to be defined by the community, via some sort of voting process.

I personally would vote for everything that makes UI nicer and more simple to use.
Ubuntu is a very solid foundation so I would leave it here, but more efforts are definitely required for UI to appeal to the 'common' user.
E.g. the possibility to drag and drop icons and launchers from menu to dock to panel.
Also everything around system settings could be improved vastly.
Default Gnome menu is clumsy, items under Administration, Settings and System Tools seem to be distributed randomly.
Also I personally would appreciate having predefined font profiles with anti-aliasing switched off.