@OP: I did consider the possibility that he was BS'ing us all, and for all we know, he coded the driver, got countless amounts of money, and has a millions-a-year paying job. But either we give the benefit of the doubt to everyone, or we apply the same standard to everyone, and spend every forum post including paragraphs of "now if you're bullshitting, and ____ is actually the truth, then ...". There's a time and a place for such discussion, and this is a good enough place, but unless someone want to take their hacking skills, track down lxp and find out if his situation is really what he says it is, there's little point in just saying "but it's possible you're lying". The people who can maturely contemplate each possibility (instead of just jumping on one or the other) rarely need to tell each other that X-possibility-is-possible.

As for payment options, I like Tiago's fund idea - though some damn good, optified, and stable apps don't make it out of devel... I suppose it could be insentive though.

However, I don't think many people would donate to the fund... Or like an equal distribution scheme (I think it's a great idea, but people might object on the grounds of wanting to donate do a specific project - though they can donate out-of-fund of course, but that's the point. You need enough people donating in-fund for it to be viable. At the end of the day, I like the standard model. Software in repos, donate links for those who want to donate. If the fund model can be implemented, it's a wondeful idea, but it needs to keep momentum, and have some form of accountability and transparancy that can be enforced.