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After The GNOME Bounties, It's Mozilla's Turn
MikeCapone writes "Slashdot had an article about the GNOME bounties a few days ago, but now, thanks to the Shuttleworth Foundation (created by Mark Shuttleworth, the guy who went into the ISS as a Soyuz cosmonaut a couple of years ago), the Mozilla project also has some monetary incentives. The budget for 2004 is USD$100,000."
For various annoying reasons I have to use hotmail for a great deal of my email. Recently, MS changed the hotmail interface so links to messages are done in javascript instead of regular HTML. This means that I can't control+click all my messages and have them open into tabs. Its been barely over 24hrs since they have done this and I'm already contemplating setting up a html-email/hotpop server localy just to get around this...
Anyway, to the point. Submit a (working) patch to mozilla that gets included and get a $50 amazon.com or thinkgeek gift certificate, or a paypal payment (minus fees).
The patch should:
-detect when javascript would open a new window
-If the link was to be opened into a new tab (via control-click, 3rd mouse button, or whatever option is set), open the link into a new tab instead of a new window
-have an option to open all new windows into a new tab
-This bounty expires at midnight GMT on 12/31/04. By which time I'll either have been annoyed to the point of death, or have been forced to setup an alternate solution.
Defuddle my email address and send me an email when its done. Also, if you know a better place to put this bounty, please reply. Mozilla.com should have a section for this...
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
It's about time. Not that small contributions haven't helped, but ever since the support was pulled for Netscape, things have rather been free floating (barring the Firebird project). It's terrific to see that there is a solid future for the development of one of the best IE alternatives out there.
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
for a good tool for combining people who want to same software and are willing to pay. Like sourceforge and paypal rolled into one.
My dream software - a decent open source fantasy sports dollar based draft solution. And I know I'm no the only one.
Hmmm. Paying people to develop code? What a clever idea! I'd beter patent this quick!
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Dude, this is like so little cash. This is roughly the salary of one person for a year. In exchange for that, you get hundreds of worker bees.
$100K for a year will hire maybe two contractors or one really good contractor. Contractors don't usually charge per task, either, but per hour - so you don't have any guarantee this way that the code will be done either.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
Seeing this openly advertised gives me a great deal of hope for future open development efforts. Having some monetary incentive is a pretty big barrier to lots of programmers who are otherwise interested -- it's just the standard geek reward of "people will praise me for my effort" isn't enough for them.
In this particular case, the bounties appear to be for very specific features to existing products. Looks like it's working! But it seems the bounties are oriented solely toward individual programmers. I have to wonder how such a bounty would apply to larger-scale projects? I mean, for instance, what would the ramifications be of creating a bounty for a less-specific domain, or one in which there are numerous contributors so that one person couldn't solely claim responsiblity for the feature or program?
I suppose someone would have to decide how much effort each person put into the feature or program, and pro-rate the bounty to each person based on that decision. Could be a recipe for some hard feelings.
I think bounties are a great idea, but the way those bounties are implemented will make a pretty sizeable difference in developer response.
I like this approach, though. It's an individual, saying "I have a fund this large, and am willing to pay this much for these things to get done". Much better than some big corporate bid match-up service that falls flat on its face like some notables over the last few years...
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm glad this is happenning. I was just thinking to myself (I win all my arguments that way) the other day about the perception that FOSS users won't pay for software and just want free as in beer. Of course to an extent that is true, but then it dawned on me that it's actually businesses that just want free beer.
:-(
The idea is constantly bandied about that FOSS programmers are just part time hackers with nothing better to do, but when you look at the quality of some FOSS projects that can't be true. It takes time and money. So why aren't companies like Sun and IBM making with the money to pay KDE to create a Micro-Soft like "Control Panel" for the desktop? Not that we may need one, it's only an example. Companies like IBM love to use Linux to nettle Micro-Soft and push their own agenda, but if they were serious about Linux on the desktop they'd put a bounty out for cohesive and intuitive applications that will help build a core of non technical users.
The German government took this route with Kroupware, and I just hope that Novell will do something like it with SuSE, but I still believe a serious sea change of perception and thought needs to take place in the corporate world. FOSS is a resource not only to push your other agendas, but can be harnessed relatively cheaply to get what you want. For those of us that can't code (yet) it doesn't matter if the source code is available, but it might be feasible to pay a developer to create a feature I want, maybe through a clearinghouse type website (any VCs in the house?). I know I'd pay if I had money for MozMail to be able to schedule the times it sent mail a la Outlook, and I even had someone ready to switch from Outlook until they discovered MozMail couldn't do that
Enuff rambling, maybe this is just a start of the community bootstrapping itself and the corporate world will notice and loosen the purse strings...
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Mark's Shuttleworth's an interesting guy. He knew one of the developers of the POV-Ray raytracer, and before he went into orbit he comissioned an image to be rendered on his laptop while in orbit. It was done by Gilles Tran and Jaime Piqueres, two well respected POV-Ray artists. Gilles has the story on his website.
Huh, what (wakes up) ... is Microsoft taking out contracts on open-source developers now?
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
By default, Mozilla Firebird displays annoying error messages if a connection fails, instead of quitely displaying the error information in the browser window as Internet Explorer does. To turn off the error messages and use pages instead, add the following code to your user.js file: // Instead of annoying error dialog messages, display pages:d ", true);
user_pref("browser.xul.error_pages.enable
You can access your user.js file by typing about:config in your search box, assuming you're running Firebird [may work for the moz, not sure].
The Mozilla team once included (in versions <= 1.4) a build-optional SVG module; you could then use SVG as part of a multi-Doctype document (alongwith XHTML, MathML...).
The interesting side of it is that you can script SVG; like you would do with DHTML on a regular XHTML document. Text and data and instructions embedded in a SVG document are *still* accessible; oppose Flash.
Now that branch is put aside - there is no easy way to include SVG in a stable release: you must use trunk and/or do multiple source patches.
As a free replacement for proprietary technologies, it would really be nice to see some effort put into reviving SVG in Mozilla.
If the system were set up so that you could contribute to a 'bounty', then the system would scale even better.
Some central board on a project, like the gnome project, would administer the bounties. If its bothering you, add to the bounty. Eventually its enough money to be a proper incentive.
Like the gnome bounties, the board itself would have to choose the best solution, so as a bounty contributor (the person sending the money) you'd give up that control. A minor giveaway, and something you probably don't have time to do anyway.
Sounds good to me.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
What if something like Bugzilla had a system whereby people could make micropayments towards bounties for fixing bugs and implementing features? The final effect would be the same as someone setting up a single large bounty, but the tasks would be prioritized somewhat more democratically.
:)
Setting this up would not be easy: you'd have to have a financial partner (Amazon comes to mind in that they had a system where money was held in escrow or something until the buyer was satisfied), and the system would have to have decent financial auditing to prevent abuse, but it could be done.
Microbounties would also bring back a measure of consumer power to the world of open source development. Projects/tasks that attract donators will also attract developers, and the disconnect we always talk about between what users want and what developers want to work on would become smaller.
And while I'm talking big, let me point out that this model could be adapted to the provision of other information goods. I can imagine a small band setting up a bounty for their next album, with funds not released until the album is complete (in this case, it would be the suppliers setting up the bounties, not the demanders. I guess you'd call them 'ransoms' not 'bounties').
Sombody ought to set up a bounty for the implementation of this idea
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.