I will try to address most of the questions of the last replies, aside from some insulting and arrogant ones like
So if you could humor me and answer the questions that'd be great.
So:
For this idea I was inspired, mostly, by two things
1. I was lacking some stuff that I wanted badly to see in game (for instance, real trading economics with demand/supply ratings or normal GUI) and was really frustrated that Toady is focusing on completely different stuff.
2. I was seeing how modding community is growing around mostly closed and propriatary codebase (all kinds of different mods that provide advanced mechanics or completely placing you in different (post-apocalypse, hi-tech) universe) and how painfully it is to mod such game.
So the "formula" of success was pretty much "simple":
1. Start off with a very basic engine, that will provide basic rendering capabilities, easy GUI management, entity management and some really core machanics, like world interaction/physics
2. Keep in mind the goal of game content and engine separation, as much as possible, so that everyone, who is capable of writing a mod, can revamp a completely fresh and new alternative to DF-like game, without spawning a slowly dying standalone game.
3. Start to think about a "core game", which will be much like the orginal DF, and will serve for others as an example codebase.
So what happens:
a) if someone is lacking some awesome functionality, or depth of complexity in some aspect of the game - he can start the thread in forum, find interested people, and they can (easily!) add it to the game
b) if someone is interested in a complete revamp (goblin/orc camp), they can do it easily.
How money play along? I've guessed something like a reward system for active commiters can be good (based off donations), and initial funding for engine polishing can also be good (Currently, I have funds to fund a small team of coders for some period of time. Unfortunately, I lack experience to make proper estimates how far we can progress with that).
About whole "stealing the bread from Toady" thing: this is market. And you need to be prepared at some point, that somebody will take YOUR idea and try to outrun you with it. I am not claiming that I am "the man". No. You all were absolutely right, that I lack experience in such stuff. Hell, I am not even a full professional in DF yet
But I think, community as a team (opensource) can do better.
Don't want to spawn another holywar here, but think of this idea and DF as of linux and windows.
Thank you for your feedback. I guess that will be all from my side. I should have prepared my topic more carefully and in less aggresive form, so that we could have started normal conversation a bit earlier, without any useless emotions.
Have fun!