The bounty bugzilla.

dE_logics · Veteran Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 1848 Location: $TERM

I've been having this idea for quiet a while.

Why not allow users to tag in some bucks with bugs? The people/group who solves it acclaims the reward.

Of course the system needs to be discussed and developed, this's just the starting point.
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yoshi314 · l33t Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 782 Location: PL

i think a few conditions would have to be met :
- non trivial problem
- requires a lot of effort to resolve
- accepted by distro developers
- relatively big interest from users ; just because one user puts up a bounty on something nobody else wants, doesn't mean it should be done.

since if would be paid work, it might require some extra legal regulations.
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dE_logics · Veteran Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 1848 Location: $TERM

Those problems will be fixed. If a user give $100 for bugs... nothing's wrong with that. It's a nice way for the users to contribute; in this case he'll see where his money goes unlike non free software, this's a new perspective.

+ if this actually happens to Gentoo's bugzilla, it'll be on the headlines. We'll be the creative people. :lol:

John R. Graham · Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 2:58 pm Post subject:

I think this is a very clever idea and I would love to see it happen. Such payments could have a fixed percentage (perhaps half?) that automatically goes to the Gentoo Foundation with the rest earmarked for the team that solved the bug.

I also think the challenges are more with compliance than with the technical or logistical. For instance, would Gentoo need to know all of the tax compliance rules for each jurisdiction around the world where payments were to be made? Perhaps not; perhaps there are uniform US rules for handling international payments and thus there would be only two jurisdictions (domestic and international) to worry about.

- John
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wim-x · Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 5:53 pm Post subject:

Perhaps combine it with an existing micro-payment service like Flattr.

dE_logics · Veteran Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 1848 Location: $TERM

How do we donate and currently?... we can use the same method.
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forrestfunk81 · Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 12:31 pm Post subject:

Genone · Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 12:55 pm Post subject:

The main problem (legal and political issues aside) is to ensure that the bounties are actually paid, IOW filter out fakes. A single fake could ruin the whole idea. Also you'll need an instance to resolve disagreements ("I implemented your feature" - "no, that's not what I wanted", etc).

dE_logics · Veteran Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 1848 Location: $TERM

ToeiRei · Veteran Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 1113 Location: Austria

I'd love to see such a bounty system too. An idea to deal with fakes is to pay to a 3rd party guy who keeps it to ensure things are correct. Then that 3rd party pays the one who solved the problem. If it's not solved, the money is returned.

But I wouldn't worry about minior work or whatever. Even if it's a minior bug for you, it can be a major blocker for me.
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dE_logics · Veteran Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 1848 Location: $TERM

Since everyone's liking this (including the devs), I think it's a good idea to start designing the system.
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John R. Graham · Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 1:55 pm Post subject:

Somebody didn't like it; I wish they had posted their reasons. So far every comment has been very much like, "Good idea but there are problems that will need to be addressed."

- John
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krinn · Advocate Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 3204

i don't think it's a good idea, if you want send money to a dev, just send money to him. I remember the adopt a dev thread, something was like ask all dev to put their own wish and let users just buy them books, computer parts...

tagging say, gnome bug with bucks =
- gnome dev can add himself bug to gnome just because gnome is a sure thng that might get tag for solve (and none can beat him at solve, as he put the bug himself). And don't tell me it's evil, devs are human.
- somone can fix a bug but don't send the fix until the bug is tag with bucks : so seen a bug, make a solve : stop, waiting for some bucks to appears to push the solve.

edit: i forget to do it, so i vote no. I want also to add this vote is partially made, yes and no aren't really the same as

and

what about a vote "gentoo is the best distro" with choices as "hell yeah, and gentoo users are god" and "i vote no because gentoo is too hard for my poor brain, and also as girls don't think i'm sexy, i'm a well know looser"

dE_logics · Veteran Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 1848 Location: $TERM

^

Those are some real issues. However the problem will be solved if we limit the bounties to -

1) Feature requests.
2) Fixing of bugs by developers other than the one who made the buggy code. If the developer who made the buggy code fixes it himself, the amount will be donated to the foundation instead.

Another problem with point 2) is that some naughty developer has made multiple profiles and so acclaims the reward by effectively fixing his own bugs.
This problem will be fixed by giving rewards to developers who already have a significant contribution. Doing that under 2 accounts is very difficult.

This's similar to ToeiRei's idea.
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disi · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 7:28 am Post subject:

krinn · Advocate Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 3204

by devs are human i mean everyone knows weakness of human, could be resume to 3 : power, sex, money.

but this also gave motivation, like self estimate, so humans can also work for free if they take cause for something, but adding money to the problem will change the rules....
Exactly like if we see "I slept with first one that correct that bug in that package. Megan Fox". Can only bet now rules change and yep, i'm sure that bug will get fix real fast.

And i don't like the votes : with such a system kde, gnome, x11 team will always get the money, because this is most use/install applications, not to say they are also bigger so more bugs might be in it.
You will also never gave any money to the doc team or the guy that work on all obscur package, or worst : why would i keep working on x86 team when 80% users are in amd64 ? = devs gave up x86 support to have higher chance of reward on amd64 as most users use it, most votes will goes to that arch first.

Same, what about a feature that devs would think real nice, good evolve for the distro, but users don't care or worst hate it
- baselayout1 was old & using bash, but what users would have vote for openrc ? They even see it more as a bugger than anything else. I'm not here to judge, but if all devs have agree to use openrc, even users cannot see why, it was certainly a good step forward. But the distro cannot vote, users could.
- as another example, what user would have vote a bug that wish remove .la files ? none.

i would rather like a random cycling time to pay: like make a list of devs (keep it hidden to users), users gave money blindly, dev1 get the money, user gave money blindly, dev2 get the money... restart at 1 when it end.
It would be enough to motivate devs a bit more, not to put money on a vote for that bug, but because they know their work is appreciate and one day they'll get a little extra cash to buy a new book.

It would be also easier to handle : making the devs list, let's say shake it randomly, list create. Now any new dev will be add last in the list. Next to that put a sum (let's say 50$) and the user system to raise money. Users gave money, you hit 50$ send it to dev1 and keep going with next dev...

I only see two problems, one dev that might have help a lot the distro, if he resign before his turn come, he won't be reward even he have done something nice for us. But i think it's acceptable.
Lol the more devs the distro have the less devs will get money again, dev: kill the dev next to you, your name will come back faster

dE_logics · Veteran Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 1848 Location: $TERM

krinn · Advocate Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 3204

disi · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 3:03 pm Post subject:

krinn · Advocate Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 3204

dE_logics · Veteran Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 1848 Location: $TERM

This's more of gambling. If a dev doesn't work, he'll still get paid and if a dev works, he wont.

It should be something like the more a dev works (on the bugs which users report), probability of him getting paid is more.
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