We will be shipping some units sooner than others, and not every feature of the software will be released at the time the first units roll out. For that reason, you’re quite right, one of the purposes is so that we know which features to work on first.
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Thanks for the comment Dan. I feel somewhat vindicated for being a glass half empty guy among a sea of glass half full members. 
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Not sure what units you will ship first but as I ordered early on the first day and hope to be one of those early shipments I strongly urge you to look at my answers and include everything I said was most important. 
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I really hope the questions about frequency and time of use are not targeted at infrastructure sizing and that the backend is implemented with proper autoscaling services.
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What else would they be for?
No worries there.
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Planning staffing.
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Pretty much what I expected.
Time of use question goes hand in hand with preferred method of support question. If a bunch of people are going to want full live video chat for support, and they are spread across all time zones… there needs to be 24/7 manning of 5+ people in those first few months when the Glowforge is shipping out.
But if all of us are lazy/anti-social/slow-poke, and we elect to contact primarily through email, forums, and social media… Status quo is pretty much going to cover things.
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I’m hoping that the “work on first” above means that you are not trying to figure out which features to drop. I wouldn’t really mind if some of the more tricky-to-program features got delayed a bit, but I’m expecting that all major features that have been promised thus far will be implemented at some point down the road, but, more importantly, that all hardware features that have been promised will be implemented at release and that they will be well engineered and fabricated.
On edit: looks like you pretty much addressed my hopes in another reply. For the most part I’d be happy for quite a while if I could just easily export a DXF and cut out the part from flat wood, Delrin, or acrylic sheets.
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I insist they release it with all the awesome still though. Because there are just so many things I want to try. I can’t wait. Some days I feel like a child not wanting to leave incase the good part happens but really having to use the bathroom.
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Personally, I’d let everyone else wait for their JPG, PNG, TIF, SVG, AI, PDF direct to GF, to get DXF direct to GF right out of the box! 
Yes, we are ALL basically selfish and don’t care much about the other GF crowdfunders when asked what features WE find most important. 
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Well if we’re voting publicly 2.5d relief is at the top of my list! No one uses DXF… 
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well I can’t even spell DXF, but if we could just get that lid cam turned around for the incriminating selfie of me not getting any productive work done…
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That’s all I will use. My CAD parts to DXF to GF.
Again, none of us really care about what the others want so long as we get our most important features.
I do. It’s all that’s consistent between all the lasers I’m using. They all support some different formats but the one they all support is DXF. Being an old standard helps sometimes.
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Just a heads up: we’re randomly selecting some backers and emailing them a copy of the survey. That’s because we want to get a sense of how our favorite customers (you all in the forum) compare to the silent masses who don’t hang out here. To improve the response rate, we’re offering an Amazon gift certificate to those randomly chosen people (and only them).
If you get an email invitation to take the survey, take it again. You’re eligible, same as anyone else who gets it! But you only get the gift certificate if you fill it out from the magical email link.
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This is actually an excellent technique dan is implementing here. Seeing if the “forum active” Glowforge purchasers are representative of the entire population. Kinda testing the leanings of the vocal minority as it were. I doubt we will have the opportunity to see the comparison of the survey results, active users vs. inactive users, but it would be interesting.
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Make sure we get statistics on that survey. I would love to see what everyone is saying.
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Not wanting to poke the bear or have any trade secrets given away, or have the Kool-Aid contingent vote to have me burned at the stake,
But. . . . . . .
Given @dan 's comment (and the big survey), would it be too unreasonable for the team to consider providing a Glowforge “features” schedule detailing anticipated availability timing and update it as changes materialize?
Just to keep we in CrowdVille distracted and from getting too restless. Can’t see that it does anything more than have the GF owner energy up with the “oh, look, my favourite features are scheduled to be available by December 2016! Woo Hoo! ! !”.
Something along this line. . . . .
Or is this just crazy talk. . . . 
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You should not have to state these things… 
The kool-aid contingency is ALWAYS going to jump on anyone who has an opinion different than theirs, and you should know that just as many people (as the drinkers) have the same opinions/questions/concerns that you do. I say “thanks” for putting it out there, for the silent types.
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