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Gnome.org Desktop Integration Bounty Hunt
tempest303 writes "In order to help improve integration between apps on the Gnome desktop, Gnome.org is offering bounties for the completion of a variety of integration tasks. Bounties range from $15, for submitting new .ical files for Evolution 2.0's multiple calendar view, to $2500 for allowing synchronization between Evolution's addressbook with Gaim's buddy list!"
It's all good and well to program for love and pride, but these rewards will help the project move over some of the less glamourous problems.
Consolidation is important in the Linux world; if coders spent more time on it instead of creating new competing apps (not that there's not a place for that), the world would be a better place.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Actually, its on a tight timeframe, the rules state that it has to be officially accepted into CVS, follow clean code and be nice.
People may cooperate, but unite behind one front-man.
This means that a lot of hacking will go on in the shadows, then pour out "when its done", Just like usual. Since the code has to pass the module maintainers eyes, form and correctness will be ensured.
Overall I think this is a great incentive. (Compare this to Abiword and the patchbounty, for example )
I didn't do this, now did I?
Well, once they actually release their code and claim the money prize, their code is now open-source and anyone can look at it. It only motivates them to hide their work until the point where anyone uses it. But I think it's the same way in the current (unpaid) model of contribution... individuals' work is generally not available to anyone until they release it.
Slashdot's gnome Logo is outdated
g
The current gnome logo is more than 1 year old.
This is the new one:-
http://gnomedesktop.org/images/topics/gnomenew.pn
-- Hasbullah bin Pit (sebol)
Mod parent up.
I think this is a great idea. You think of something you really want, go to the bounty server and give it a price. If other people think it's worth kicking into, it'll add to the donation pot.
I think you've come up with another way to make money with free software.
The donators could also choose which licenses they'd accept the software to be released under.
This would also be interesting to try out with closed-source software. See how many donations are available.
I guess with the closed source option, you'd have to specify with whom you'd be willing to share the source. If I were donating 10,000 to get a closed source program that scours the stock market reports and lists the fast moving stocks, I don't think I'd like to share that particular program with the other two guys who bid +$3.28 each.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
The bounty page says that they are trying to achieve integration between key components of the linux desktop. Evolution, OpenOffice.org, and gaim, are a few key components of the linux desktop. You may choose not to use them, but that doesn't make the statement false.
And since when did hackers need money to hack?
Hackers don't necessarily need money in order to hack. You miss the point of this contest. The point is, it's a win-win situation. If you are a hacker and could use some extra money, now you have some extra motivation to grab a task and work on it. And it's a win for Novell, who I hear donated the funding for this. So my question is, why are you so negative?
And where does this leaves the previous claims of GNOME being "integrated"?
There is always room for improvement, wouldn't you say?
Why can't those making the money, i.e. Ximian / Novell / SUN do the work for their profits?
They do. But now those outside Novell, etc. have a chance to make some money and contribute to our favourite desktop.
Celebrate the finer things in life
I mean, what if the rules aren't always clear?
This wouldn't be a problem if the bounty were small, but what if bounties got to be in the five digits?
My point is, who's writing the rules? Who's determining if an entry has met all the criteria?
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Wouldn't have been more easy for Evolution, Gaim and other programs to share a single addressbook?!
Learn from KDE, where Kopete is now dumping it's own contact list in order to share the same Kaddressbook with Kontact, KMail and any other KDE program.
Why making things more complicated instead of making them simplier?
FINALLY, someone out there is getting the idea! You can't eat a "thank you", and while the amounts paid may or may not be worth the effort put in, it's something! Great incentive.
With even a little bit of cash out there for developers to earn, projects like gnome can go a lot farther, a lot faster IMO. My hat is off to you guys at gnome.org!
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Slaves? Is there someone rounding up innocent developers, nailing them to seats in front of computers, and giving them sound beatings if they don't work on these projects? I don't see any mention of that.
If you want an analogy, think of it as like a lottery. You can't enter expecting the money. If you don't like the idea of your work being wasted, then don't enter.
The stupid thing about it is that whilst the button order Apple uses *may* be better in their usability tests, this is in the Mac environment where Apple can enforce consistency.
In a typical Linux desktop however, all of the non-GTK2 apps have the Windows button order. This includes things like all KDE programs, all GTK1 programs, Mozilla, OpenOffice, closed-source programs for Linux etc.
What is more confusing, a slightly less intuitive button order which is consistent across all apps (and incidentally the one that most new converts are probably used to already from their Windows days), or one where the button order changes all the time no matter how "intuitive" one of those button orders is? I find it difficult to believe any usability tests will find the 2nd option easier for Mr and Mrs Average to use.
I do admire Gnome's attempts to have HIG guidelines and I think it is a good thing, but sometimes I have to wonder if they really understand usability or if they are just blindly following Apple's guidelines without thought of how it works in the real world of the Linux desktop.
You made your post sound like a troll, but I would like to support some of the stuff that you said.
When I tried out KDE, one thing that I found to be very impressive was the integration among the core applications and those non-core applications that are built as 'KDE applications'.
However, here is the catch, I am a GNOMEish person, (personal preference mainly) and when I use a KDE application (not a QT application), a whole load of stuff happens, and it is as if half of KDE is starting.
Your fears about something like this happening with GNOME is justified, and would like to run XFCE now and then and it would be great if GTK only apps were available.
In Debian packages, I have always found many gtk programs distributed as two packages, one for GNOME-ized and the other gtk-only, and I have found gtk-only versions to be faster and (since I am using GNOME 1.4, I do not get much benefit of integration).
You might have been modded down as a Troll, but your point is worth thinking about.
Thanks.
GrimReality
2003-11-23 01:52:46 UTC (2003-11-22 20:52:46 EST)
P.S.: Please don't call GNOME 'bloatware', I use GNOME 1.4 daily and has found it to be not-bloated. I have not used GNOME-2 much, but it seems to be a lot more simplified (and faster) than GNOME 1.4, so I don't think GNOME deserves to be called 'bloatware'.
We use this method of automatically publishing our calendars via SSH to a web server at my office and, thus far, it has worked flawlessly. Perhaps somebody can use JiCal as the backend for this bounty?
If I had the money, I would offer a bounty to anyone who could come up with an equivalent of EndNote that works seamlessly with OpenOffice (I would happily pay for the package if they produced a version for Linux) or a bounty to anyone who can come up with an interface as easy-to-use as SPSS for any of the existing (powerful but hard-to-use) statistical programs...
That's my wishlist, anyway, but as I'm a student I can't afford to do it alone, and don't have the time to code these interfaces...