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List:       kde-pim
Subject:    Re: Paid programmers in OS software? (was: Re: [Kde-pim] Recurring to-do items for KOrganizer?)
From:       Holger Freyther <freyther () gmx ! net>
Date:       2002-07-16 11:53:25
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Am Tuesday 16 July 2002 13:35 schrieb André Somers:
> Citeren Cornelius Schumacher <schumacher@kde.org>:
> > Of course you can hire a programmer to develop something which is given
> > back to KDE, but the original post was about a small amount of money,
> > which probably isn't enough to really pay the development. The problem
> > with such "prizes" for certain features is that it might be hard to tell
> > who actually has implmented the feature, because there is no specific
> > owner of code in open-source. To avoid arguments about money, I think it
> > is best, if money is given to KDE e.V and we developers concentrate on
> > having fun with programming.
>
> I think you're right, and if someone wants to pay something, it is best
> send to KDE e.V. However, I still think that it would be no problem if
> someone was paid to implement a certain feature based on what's allready
> there. If, for the sake of argument, I were to implement these recurring
> to-do items in KOrganizer, making the asker of this feature very happy, why
> can't I receive some money for that. I don't claim that any code is mine,
> nor do I claim that I made everything needed for this feature myself. I
> would merely have made sure that a certain feature was implemented (and
> after that became available for the whole community, as it should be). If
> someone would want to pay me to do that, why not?

I believe it's wrong for two reasons.
Imagine somebody writes a lib and a small GUI for his lib and it took 
enourmous amount of time to figure out how to certain things inside the lib.
Now somebody want's a button somewhere placed.
One devel figures it's quite easy given the lib already supports that feature. 
He places the button via designer. He get's lets say 50$ for 5 minutes of 
work and the appreciation. Maybe a dot story is running about that new 
feature and devel X 'the Button placer' gets all the appreciation.
This can lead to some problems inside the community if this pay for a feature 
policy gets wide spread.
First of all the main author would get pissed because he get's only bugreports 
that the feature is not working correctly and he gets no appreciation for his 
work.
This could lead to the situation that people are lurking for such offers and 
are implementing it over and over again.
Other people invest hard work into everything and you lurk for the right 
situation to make some money.
I believe that such a situation is entirely bad for the community cause this 
would lead to disputes and suspiciousness belong the developers.
When the money get's donated to the KDE e.V. it's public available. The KDE 
e.V. distributes the money belong the developer that needs it. Or it's buying 
pretzels on fairs... ;)

I hope that my arguments make sense
regards Holger
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