for those with more money than time and enough knowledge to accurately describe a code project, it would be nice if maemo/meego had a formal bounty system.
I know there are lots of talented people on here that probably are in the more time than money crowd, perhaps we could even it out some
He means a system (through maemo.org or wherever) where people can post up descriptions of projects and an amount of money - which coders can then pickup and work on. If they complete the spec then they get the bounty.
e.g. "I need an app on my N900 so that it can create a realistic fart sound. £100 is offered."
That is actually not a bad idea at all. I would like to see something like that implemented in MeeGo.
Say 5 users band together (the bounty shareholders) and put on the table 20$ each for feature X. The first developer (or group of developer) to get his application in the official repo can ask the bounty shareholders to vote if the application is considered finished. If the majority says YES then the developer gets the bounty.
I think it is a good idea if the resulting apps are then uploaded to extras and stay open. There are some questions coming to my mind, though.
- If the app has been already paid for and a serious bug is discovered, is the developer obliged to fix the bug since he already took the money?
- Maybe then testers and bug-reporters want money, too.
@pete.fu - I think we have to see the "bounty system" more as an incentive system and one to show appreciation. If developers want to make 'proper' money they still have to go down the commercial route.
The cash raised/offered through it is never going to be enough to cover any real costs. I think the amounts offered through it are generally going to be less than $100/€100 in total - i.e. not even an hour for a proper developer.
It's a good opportunity for the younger members (who have the spare time!) to make some little bits of cash and hone their skills (both programming technically and within a team/QA environment).
I lloked at rent-a-coder, there is one active project involving something for maemo where somebody wants C.net application ported to maemo, but that was it.
@cashclientel-I can do myself more than $100, no problem, but there is no real system in place to deal with such a transaction WITHIN the community. I suppose if I post something and then somebody is serious about doing it we can move to rent-a-coder or one of the similar type sites that provides escrow, etc.
If you look at some other open source projects like funambol, there is codesniper and other projects have something similar.
