[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] bounty program?

[From: Levi Bard]

On 1/11/07, Quim Gil <quimgil at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not that I'm against or in favour of bounties (depends on the context
> and particular circumstances, I guess) but...
>
> On 1/11/07, Andrew Flegg <andrew at bleb.org> wrote:
>
> > Looking around for off-the-shelf software we could customise shows up
> > GNOME's Bounties programme (the bounties are vetted by committee):
> >
> >     http://www.gnome.org/bounties/
>
> This programme was discontinued, it's worth knowing why.
> >
> > ... and Nat Friedman's thoughts on what I've just described above:
> >
> >     http://nat.org/2005/january/#bountysystem
>
> Let's not forrget Luis Villa's research on the same topic, far less optimistic:
>
> http://tieguy.org/blog/2006/06/18/crowding-out-of-intrinsic-motivations-aka-the-bounty-problem/

I think that, while I agree that some types of bounty programs are
demonstrably harmful to participation on free software projects, a
well-constructed and well-thought-out bounty program could be
beneficial.

Actually what might be interesting to try is what one might call a
"blind bounty" program.  How this would work:

a) There's a central tracker for bugs, feature requests, etc.
b) User X submits the feature request, "Port GCompris to the 770."
c) User X also submits a pledge of 99 euros for this feature request
(the pledge is invisible to developers).
d) Devs work on feature requests and bugs as usual, but when a dev
completes a request with a bounty, s/he gets a nice surprise.

This kind of plan wouldn't raise priority on a specific task the way
that traditional incentive programs aspire to (and often fail to
anyway), but it would reward active development on the project space
in general.  It also removes the demeaning aspect of traditional
incentives ("I'll give you $4 to spend 50 hours of your free time
working on this!"), replacing it with more of a "Good job!  I
appreciate the hard work you put in!" feeling.

-- 
Just stop and take your secret journey, you will be a new box. --Leeta
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html