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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!"
Doesnt the open source model succeed by encouraging people to collaborate and work together? It seems to me that this bounty concept will only motivate people to hide information from each other and work against each other in the name of money.
This is very interesting concept, image someone setting up a bounty server for free software (in general) where people could donate money to bounties on any free software project and hackers could claim the money ones they've solved it.
If there is one clear area where microsoft leads the field its application integration. Obviously the centralized control make this much more achievable.
In the long-term it may be more effective to build a high-level API to allow this integration. Perhaps some kind of built in RDBMS with a well defined schema for commonly shared application data. Several static tables to provide an area for common data (Contacts, Favourite websites/ftp servers etc) plus an extensible area for application specific data.
If the open source community had a well-defined process (shock horror!!) to request changes to the schema we could begin to provide the kind of application integration currently on offer by MS.
Integrating Gaim with Evolution is great but surely a strategy for integration email clients with IM clients in the general sense would be much more valuable.
Definatly a move in the right direction though!
The downside of course is the only big Fondations (Apache, Gnome, etc) have money to spend because they get it from the industry (like Intel, IBM,...)
Small donations are the way of the future!
A fund should be set up where people can donate money that would be allocated to bounties, and they could either select on which task they want their money to be allocated to drop it in a pool of ressources that would be allocated through some kind of more or less democratic process (secure online polls/surveys?)
As far as I know this thing doesn't exist in the open source world. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
...an adaptation of the Open Code Market idea. I'm glad the open source community is exploring more and more ways to make a living while creating free software.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
While there is no doubt that Gnome is visually attractive, has there been any empirical evaluation of Gnome from a human-computer interaction perspective, i.e. a usability study? I've certainly never come across any such testing in relation to Gnome, which is worrying.
Evolution's contact editor allows you to annotate a contact with the dates of their birthday and anniversary. However, these dates don't automatically copy themselves into your calendar...you won't see them when you glance through your schedule, and an alarm won't fire to warn you of a friend's upcoming birthday...Clearly, this is a travesty."
Indeed it is a travesty. And a travesty that exists between Apple's Address Book and iCal apps as well. You can get round it using software like Birthday Shifter, but this really ought to be in the main app's functionality.
Cheers,
Ian
This is just a variation of the Street Performer Protocol: People pool their money to fund the scarce CREATION of a unique work they want put into the public domain (rather than paying for artificially scarce COPIES of data).
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Power to the Peaceful
My time isn't free. I've had to spend a lot of money to get my education, as well as a lot of personal time I could've been using towards something else. As any economics student could tell you, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
This provides a nice feedback mechanism that allows non-programmers to reward programmers for "filling in" and doing what the non-programmers wanted to be done. It's a natural balance, and I consider it progress in how opensource is developed. One of the few sustainable ways we could keep Linus Torvalds working on the kernel 40 hours a week is by having IBM, Red Hat, et all contributing to his work, just like Red Hat employs Alan Cox, or any number of other examples.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
As others mentionned, this sounds a lot like the Open Code Market idea that has been discussed here previously.
:)
For $25k, Novell just bought amazing publicity. Perhaps an Open Code Market could attract such financing?
Big companies could even offer matching funds to any/certain types of OS software, letting users direct where the money goes. This would not only help finance and promote projects, but publicize the company and the Open Code Market.
And since I'm giving away business advice... it seems to me trade associations would also be a good funder for many targetted projects (I imagine that would be a good way to get funding for things like accounting systems, specialized database packages, etc...)
Someone please try those ideas out. I'd much rather make a living selling code that will be open
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Er, maybe, but :
a) Gaim doesn't have an addressbook. It has a buddy list. That's a very different thing. Some buddies won't even have email addresses associated with them (which I guess is the key they're using).
b) Gaim and Evolution were developed separately. Gaim won't be using any shared addressbook until it's a neutral standard, I'd guess, with multiple implementations (KAddressbook/Evo) working together.
c) Integration of what EXISTS and WORKS NOW is infinitely easier than inventing a completely new address book standard, getting Evolution to use it, Gaim to integrate with it etc. This can be done (in fact *is* being done right now, I'm watching it happen) in a matter of hours, not months or years.