Since Windows support isn't on parity with other platforms, how can we make sure that our monetary contribution will fully go to the Windows work? Or, is it so that only the 1% of it will make it to the Windows budget?
I can't imagine donations working that way for any organization unless you're donating a considerable sum. Every organization has its own priorities and donations help them meet those priorities. If you have a cool million lying around it might help to convince them to make Windows support a priority, but if not, then all you can do is to donate in hopes of helping them focus on knocking out priorities so that they can get to your pet issue sooner.
True in that small individual donations are unlikely to fund it. Sponsoring a feature is a thing in open source. Either through a bounty site or a fund me site.
Maybe there just isn't much interest in windows support?
Crystal is a fantastic language for server-side programming where it pairs the performance of Golang with the expressiveness of Ruby.
I imagine most Crystal users love it for exactly that reason and have little interest in development resources being diverted to a platform that they have no use for.
IMO, even if 100% of the donations would fund exclusively the Linux version, it would help Windows development anyway, although indirectly. More projects using Crystal on Linux would create more media coverage, hence in the long run more interest for better Windows support, either from the core devs or from external entities. Unless one desperately needs feature X by tomorrow, which would of course be a different story.
