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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Allow money donations for precise bugs
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date:       2005-03-13 2:59:16
Message-ID: 200503121959.22427.aseigo () kde ! org
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On Saturday 12 March 2005 03:50, Maurizio Colucci wrote:
> > there's issues of code quality;
>
> This too is solved with the above proposal (coders have no reason to
> deliver bad code anymore).

i suppose if the bounty wasn't released until the code was accepted by the 
maintainer and it follows KDE standards with regards to licensing, security, 
maintenance, etc... then this is probably solvable, yes.

> > there's issues of
> > collecting and disbursing money; legalities that would come into play?;
>
> Of course, this issue must be solved. Some kind of deal with PayPal or
> http://www.dropcash.com/ should be made.

i was more thinking about sales taxes and such things =)

> > there's issues of more than one person working on the same BR and feeling
> > the shaft when one of them gets the bounty;
>
> Solvable: the bug gets assigned to the coder who has the highest
> "reputation". Reputation is a score that depends on how well he fulfilled
> previous assignments (donators should be able to give votes to
> implementors)

urg.. popularity contests. how does that translate to good code?

> > the fact that i don't see 20 people
> > voting on a bug coming up with any amount of money that correlates to the
> > time involved in fixing things;
>
> My hope is that, once you give people a way to control how their money gets
> used, they will begin donating much more. This is the whole point.

what i meant is that given the number of people who pay attention to a given 
bug, i don't see a lot of money being put down on the average bug report.

> > the fact that it isn't the patchwork that
> > needs help, it's the larger development issues which this doesn't
> > address, and so on.
>
> No problem. The developer can decide the best way to implement the feature.
> If it requires working on qt, or xorg, instead of KDE, he can do it. I
> don't see why the donator should care *where* exactly the code goes.

i mean the issues that take 100s or even 1000s of person-hours to do. the 
things that take effort, coordination and lots of time. would bug/wishlist 
donations have resulted in kparts or dcop? will they result in any of the 
other infrastructural components that we still need?

look at the bugs and wishlist items on bugs.kde.org. they are for things that 
are obviously apparent to a user versus engineering type items that most 
people need/want.

> Unless I misunderstood the role of "Friends of KDE", this seems to me only
> some kind of tax based on generosity.

no, it would be a fan club, in the same sense that the NRA is a fan club for 
guns or the 10 Club is a fan club for Pearl Jam. both result in funds and 
money going towards gun politics and Pearl Jam, respectively. the people 
involved don't get to request who the gun lobbyists take for lunch or what 
chords Pearl Jam uses in the songs on their next ablum. rather, these people 
get membership cards, cool shwag and benefits and association in a community 
of like minded people. they do this because they believe that guns are 
fun/important or that Pearl Jam makes great music.

it isn't a tax based on generosity, it's a levy for appreciation of what the 
people are doing and to get front row tickets at the next Pearl Jam concert.

the nice thing for Pearl Jam is that they have no artistic commitment to 
people in the 10 Club. none whatsoever. if they stopped putting out music and 
stopped touring and pissed off their fans, people would turn in their 
memberships.

that said, there's no reason why a Club Konqi couldn't take regular surveys 
and collate the needs / desires / etc of members, both individual as well as 
organizational, and incorporate that information into KDE releases. this 
would be the equivalent of getting that front row seat to Pearl Jam. we'd 
communicate which changes were a result of this feedback and help, of course. 
and this is all doable by non-developers.

this is the sort of relationship i'd personally feel most comfortable with 
when it comes to getting people involved.

> You seem to be ignoring the key point. Allow me to repeat:

i'm not ignoring it. i don't agree with it.

>     Most people will donate only if you give them some kind of guarantee
>     that their money will be used to develop the feature they want.
>     Contributors must be able to control how their money gets used.

then why have previous attempts at this failed? i just don't see any evidence 
for this being true. are there any studies, let alone success stories, saying 
that this is how people work?

> My proposal exploits the selfish interests of people, and turns it into
> advantage for the free software movement. This is a key difference with
> yours.

i think people are lazier and more spenthrift than they are selfish.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

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