I feel it is not acceptable that Alan shares his valuable Armory-development-time with other things, like a money-earning daytimejob.

Bitcoin came a long way in the last years. We have a billion dollar economy now. We have foundations, proper companys, lobbying, paid developers, networking, mindboggling new projects every other day, everything is pointing up.
Armory is one of the most sophisticated and secure Bitcoin clients out there. With only one core developer. In his spare time, after work.
Come on, Bitcoin is no hobbyproject any more, and neither is Armory!

I want to 1) have Alan as a fulltime, paid Armory-developer, and 2) throw as many ressources at him as necessary, more developers come to mind here.

How to raise the funds for this?

a) There is kind of a sellout on Bitcoinqt-developers: Gavin at the Bitcoinfoundation, Jeff at BitPay. Probably more I don't remember. We could sell Alan to one of the bigger Bitcoincompanys (I can't believe he didn't get offers already)! That would be the most secure and least free way.

b) The community regularly raises huge amounts of funds for good causes. Bitcoin100 comes to mind, and the recent Satoshi Forest glory. This is of course highly volatile and not very tempting to quit a regular-paying job.

c) Pay-ware, ads-n-shit, payable modules or the like. I don't see the regular users financing a salary through this, but there will be high demand for secure, integrated, accountable software for companys. This might pay for a salary in one, two years.

d) Diversification: I see huge potential in a hardwarewallet which directly integrates into Armory. Both for users and companys. Throw an Android app, and (since there is no proper alternative!) an Iphone app in the mix. The community regularly throws mindboggling amounts of funds at the newest gadgets.


So, what can we do to help Alan out?

Alan, what do you think? Would you like to tell us a bit about the situation we are to "fix"? What would you need as minimum funds? How many months, years must be secured for you to happily quit an indefinite job?

I hope you, Alan, don't feel pushed or insulted on this. I want you to be paid for the awesome work you do. I want you to have more developingtime *and* more spare time. I want you to be not restrained by 'unimportant' things like money. Just like I wouldn't want Picasso to sell vegetables at the market to finance this painting thing he does in his spare time.

I decided to post this indiscussion instead ofArmory. This is an important topic for the whole community, for various reasons.

tl,dr:
How can we get Alan, the (only) core-dev of Bitcoinclient Armory, a full-time salary on this?

Ente