I don't see why work-for-pay (bounties) are incompatible with open-source. As Mr. Rubenstein points out, bounties are cumulative, and talent is busy. At least the potential for large sums to be offered is there, and they aren't necessarily "half-assed", whatever that really means. No offer to pay any amount need be seen as insulting. One might just as well regard such derision as insulting, but the emotion serves no constructive purpose.

Perhaps if a more formalized or structured process for managing bounties was in place, cumulative bounties would grow larger and attract more developers.

Suppose you could contribute to a bounty by placing the cash in escrow, assign a deadline, and agree to an arbiter for judging completion. Would such a system be workable? Would it encourage more development of features desired by the broad community?

Alex Balashov wrote:
On Thu, 1 Nov 2007, Jason Parker wrote:

I have personally, on many occasions, seen somebody request a feature which I think is neat/interesting/whatever. I say "I think that's great, and I can write that." I do it *for free*, because *I* like the idea. If somebody is willing to pay me (hey, $50 will buy a pretty decent dinner for 2) for something I enjoyed doing - even better.

   Being an open-source developer myself, I can entirely appreciate that.

   The concept just seems confused, to me;  if you want to have things
developed in the "spirit of open-source" that you have elucidated, simply
request them as a feature in some kind of systematic way.  If you are
trying to create incentives of a commercial nature along with that,
then, in my view, don't make them half-assed.

--
Alex Balashov
Evariste Systems
Web    : http://www.evaristesys.com/
Tel    : +1-678-954-0670
Direct : +1-678-954-0671

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