On Sat, 2005-03-12 at 09:12 +0100, Maurizio Colucci wrote: > Dear friends, > > I apologize in advance for the cross-post but it seems adequate here, as this > proposal involves users and developers. > > > IN BRIEF > -------- > > Currently, in bugzilla, I can file bugs or propose new features. My idea is > to allow users to donate money directed towards a *precise* feature or a > *precise* bug.
This is a very bad idea for one primary reason. Users often request insanely stupid features. This isn't a "the user doesn't have a problem" - it's, "the user invents a solution to their problem and specifically requests that single solution, instead of identifying their problem to the developers and letting the developer find a more optimal solution." I deal with this all the time in my own projects. Users come in asking for some feature that does something the software couldn't do before. I've made it a habit to ask why they need the software to do this. After a little discussion, I get to the root of what the user wants, and can in many cases offer a radically different solution/feature than what the user asked for, but which still solves the user's true problem and in a way that both I and the user agree is far better. Sometimes, though, the user can't distinguish between the real problem and the solution they propose. They get it stuck in their head that there is only one way to accomplish their goal and refuse to even *consider* an alternative. If developers were forced to listen to that user's demands, they'd be forced to implement a suboptimal solution to a problem that results in an over-all poorer software quality. The user might think they're better of because they have this new feature, but that user is now stuck with something that doesn't work as well as the developer's alternative, and all other users - even if they see the benefits of the alternative solution - are pretty much stuck with the one user's demands, unless you massively bloat the feature set of the app by providing multiple solutions to a single problem... all just to satisfy one user who is too stubborn to even think that his method might just not be the best. When you start adding donations, things become EXTREMELY politically charged. Users then EXPECT that a feature they donated to be implemented. Depending on how the donations work, which country the donater is in, and so, you could even end up with developers being legally obliged to implement an suboptimal or poorly thought out feature. In general, I like the idea of being able to donate money to help out with bounties (i.e., requests for features and bug fixes.) However, users SHOULD NOT EVER be able to decide which bounties are available. The developers, product managers, QA directors, and other similar people should work together to decide on the available bounties. They can weed out bad requests, work to propose alternative solutions, and so on. Once the general approach is determined, the bounty can be placed and users could donate, such that the bounty is not ever a request for something the project doesn't want to do, but instead serves solely as a way to garner developer interest in a particular feature or bug that otherwise wouldn't get implemented due to lack of time or interest. That feature will still be something thought out and agreed upon by the project maintainers, though. Right now, a new feature often gets implemented only if the requester posts a patch. Even *with* a patch, though, bad features can and are rejected. By going with a bounty-based system, you ensure that maintainers can still reject those bad features (by never placing a bounty) but outside developers can still submit patches, and that both the core maintainers and outside developers can be motivated to work on a difficult or "unsexy" feature. -- Sean Middleditch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ gnome-devel-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-devel-list
