[Q] Squeak feature bounties

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[Q] Squeak feature bounties

Russell Allen
Hi,

I've been a lurker and user of Squeak since the 1.x days, and have built
up a large list of small and large changes and features I would like to
see made available in Squeak.

I simply do not have the time nor the necessary skills to implement my
wishlist. I suspect many people are the same.

I have been thinking lately about Software Bounties. Increasingly, large
open source projects are providing mechanisms for people to put up a
bounty for a particular feature - the first person to implement the
feature gets the bounty. The feature is then made available to everyone
under the standard open source licence.

Examples:

* http://www.gnome.org/bounties/
* http://www.ubuntu.com/developers/bounties
* http://bountycounty.org/

The bounties aren't equivalent to the commercial cost of writing the
software, so it is not a straight forward case of hiring a programmer.

Bounties can range from the simple to the economically sophisticated
(http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/05/assurance_contr.html,
http://www.fundable.org/).

I suspect that the success of a Squeak bounty would depend on the
available excess of programming 'capital' (ie, how many Squeakers have
free time and inclination to step up and develop). I don't know how much
free resources the community has.

Although I am sadly not a billionare like Mark Shuttleworth :) I am
prepared to put some money at least where my mouth is if I thought it
would work.

What are the opinions of the people on this list?

Best wishes,

Russell

[hidden email]



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Re: [Q] Squeak feature bounties

Marcus Denker

On 07.03.2006, at 01:28, Russell Allen wrote:

>
> I have been thinking lately about Software Bounties. Increasingly,  
> large
> open source projects are providing mechanisms for people to put up a
> bounty for a particular feature - the first person to implement the
> feature gets the bounty. The feature is then made available to  
> everyone
> under the standard open source licence.
>
> Examples:
>
> * http://www.gnome.org/bounties/
> * http://www.ubuntu.com/developers/bounties
> * http://bountycounty.org/
>
> The bounties aren't equivalent to the commercial cost of writing the
> software, so it is not a straight forward case of hiring a programmer.
>

.....

> What are the opinions of the people on this list?
>

We have already discussed about bounties on the SqF board list,
and it would be interesting to know the opinion of people about this.

I personally think having a platform for posting/managing Bounties would
be very nice to have... I can't say I have a clue of how good this  
works,
but it would be an experiment we should do.

> Although I am sadly not a billionare like Mark Shuttleworth :)

I think he made something like 550 million with selling Thawte... not  
that
there is any practical difference, though ;-)

Ubuntu has a lot of interesting infrastructure to learn from: e.g.,  
they have
a web-based system for managing translations:

https://launchpad.net/rosetta/+about

           Marcus

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Re: [Q] Squeak feature bounties

Klaus D. Witzel
Big +1

/Klaus

On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 09:08:13 +0100, Marcus Denker <[hidden email]>  
wrote:

>
> On 07.03.2006, at 01:28, Russell Allen wrote:
>
>>
>> I have been thinking lately about Software Bounties. Increasingly, large
>> open source projects are providing mechanisms for people to put up a
>> bounty for a particular feature - the first person to implement the
>> feature gets the bounty. The feature is then made available to everyone
>> under the standard open source licence.
>>
>> Examples:
>>
>> * http://www.gnome.org/bounties/
>> * http://www.ubuntu.com/developers/bounties
>> * http://bountycounty.org/
>>
>> The bounties aren't equivalent to the commercial cost of writing the
>> software, so it is not a straight forward case of hiring a programmer.
>>
>
> .....
>
>> What are the opinions of the people on this list?
>>
>
> We have already discussed about bounties on the SqF board list,
> and it would be interesting to know the opinion of people about this.
>
> I personally think having a platform for posting/managing Bounties would
> be very nice to have... I can't say I have a clue of how good this works,
> but it would be an experiment we should do.
>
...
>            Marcus
>
>



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Re: [Q] Squeak feature bounties

Andreas.Raab
In reply to this post by Marcus Denker
Marcus Denker wrote:
>> What are the opinions of the people on this list?
>
> We have already discussed about bounties on the SqF board list,
> and it would be interesting to know the opinion of people about this.
>
> I personally think having a platform for posting/managing Bounties would
> be very nice to have... I can't say I have a clue of how good this works,
> but it would be an experiment we should do.

Hasn't this experiment already been tried? It looks like

        http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2653

contains a list of enhancements with bounties in the range of $100 to
$1000. AFAIK, none of these have ever been claimed, and I'd also be
curious to better understand why people "sign up" for these bounties (if
they do sign up at all - I wonder how many of these bounties just go to
people who happen to work on the problem anyway).

Cheers,
   - Andreas


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Re: [Q] Squeak feature bounties

Marcus Denker

On 07.03.2006, at 11:00, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Marcus Denker wrote:
>>> What are the opinions of the people on this list?
>> We have already discussed about bounties on the SqF board list,
>> and it would be interesting to know the opinion of people about this.
>> I personally think having a platform for posting/managing Bounties  
>> would
>> be very nice to have... I can't say I have a clue of how good this  
>> works,
>> but it would be an experiment we should do.
>
> Hasn't this experiment already been tried? It looks like
>
> http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2653
>

Hmm... I don't know if we should count a random, not very widely linked
(and known) wiki page as an existing bounty plattform...

> contains a list of enhancements with bounties in the range of $100  
> to $1000. AFAIK, none of these have ever been claimed, and I'd also  
> be curious to better understand why people "sign up" for these  
> bounties (if they do sign up at all - I wonder how many of these  
> bounties just go to people who happen to work on the problem anyway).
>

Yes... it would definitely interesting to know what kind of  
experience other communitues have with bounty sytems before
starting one. Maybe it does not work? I have no idea.

The Google Summer of Code thing seems to be quite successfull,  
though. And the amount of money there was in the
range of typical Bounty amounts ($3000, I think). For a Student, this  
is a lot of money...

     Marcus

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Re: [Q] Squeak feature bounties

stéphane ducasse-2
In reply to this post by Russell Allen
Hi russel

I think that a bounties setup for Squeak would be really nice.
Now we have to pay attention how to define the tasks.
So we should try and learn :)

Stef
On 7 mars 06, at 01:28, Russell Allen wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've been a lurker and user of Squeak since the 1.x days, and have  
> built
> up a large list of small and large changes and features I would  
> like to
> see made available in Squeak.
>
> I simply do not have the time nor the necessary skills to implement my
> wishlist. I suspect many people are the same.
>
> I have been thinking lately about Software Bounties. Increasingly,  
> large
> open source projects are providing mechanisms for people to put up a
> bounty for a particular feature - the first person to implement the
> feature gets the bounty. The feature is then made available to  
> everyone
> under the standard open source licence.
>
> Examples:
>
> * http://www.gnome.org/bounties/
> * http://www.ubuntu.com/developers/bounties
> * http://bountycounty.org/
>
> The bounties aren't equivalent to the commercial cost of writing the
> software, so it is not a straight forward case of hiring a programmer.
>
> Bounties can range from the simple to the economically sophisticated
> (http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/05/ 
> assurance_contr.html,
> http://www.fundable.org/).
>
> I suspect that the success of a Squeak bounty would depend on the
> available excess of programming 'capital' (ie, how many Squeakers have
> free time and inclination to step up and develop). I don't know how  
> much
> free resources the community has.
>
> Although I am sadly not a billionare like Mark Shuttleworth :) I am
> prepared to put some money at least where my mouth is if I thought it
> would work.
>
> What are the opinions of the people on this list?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Russell
>
> [hidden email]
>
>
>


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Re: [Q] Squeak feature bounties

Russell Allen
In reply to this post by Russell Allen
I don't think that the squeak community is large enough for an
un-targetted bounty list to work straight off.  There aren't enough people
floating around with time on their hands but without projects of their
own...

I agree that the Google summer of code would be a much better model.

Pick a feature, find a student or programmer who would like to implement
it, collect the money.

You would need a clear understanding of who is going to do the work, a
clear timetable for the work being done and someone to monitor progress.

To give a more concrete example:

My personal wishlist for Squeak is mostly focussed around making the image
a place where I can live, rather than a nice place to visit.  One of my
needs for living in Squeak is a decent HTML renderer; either pure
smalltalk (hard) or something like KHTML wrapped as a primitive (easier).

Assuming this is the goal, the first step would be to find someone
suitably qualified and keen to implement it and to work out a suitable
payment.

We could then set up an account on a site like fundable.org where people
pledge money on the understanding that they only have to pay if enough
money is pledged and the goal is reached; or go the 'low-tech' solution
and have someone keep track of promises by email and a website.

Best wishes,

Russell
[hidden email]


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Re: [Q] Squeak feature bounties

Edgar J. De Cleene
In reply to this post by Andreas.Raab
Andreas Raab puso en su mail :

> Hasn't this experiment already been tried? It looks like
>
> http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2653
>
> contains a list of enhancements with bounties in the range of $100 to
> $1000. AFAIK, none of these have ever been claimed, and I'd also be
> curious to better understand why people "sign up" for these bounties (if
> they do sign up at all - I wonder how many of these bounties just go to
> people who happen to work on the problem anyway).
>
> Cheers,
>    - Andreas

I copy from here:

 >>A Small Image That Loads Needed Classes On Demand To (For Example) Build
A Seaside Image With &Lt; 5 Mb Of Image Size

  Markus Fritsche Will Contribute Eur100


As small image builder , I said I was heavily discouraged of try of improve
SqueakLight from doing that and was told is a crazy idea load classes from a
class repository, as I propose several times.

I have a MVC Komm + HttpView image below 3 mb, but 100 euros is not enough
to travel to ESUG in Praga :=)

Edgar



               
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