Donations in kde bug tracking system

[Shane Wright]

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Hi

I like that idea - a nice and apprachable extension to the 'if you want it 
done, pay a developer to do it' kind of philosophy.

IMHO though it should be independent of bugs.kde.org and just be a place where 
people can request features or fixes or whatever, and developers can sign up 
for the job.

I'd use it - I'm using the time I have to contribute to KDE, but I'd also be 
happy to pay people to do the things that I don't have time to do or am not 
capable of doing yet.

I think it can only have the effect of encouraging more people to spend more 
time developing KDE - and that can never be a bad thing.

Cheers

Shane


On Friday 05 July 2002 9:52 pm, Paul Pacheco wrote:
> I understand you are against it, but I fail to see your points.
>
> > i personally don't like the idea of money mixing with OpenSource
> > concepts.
>
> It is a little late for this. IBM, Mandrake, Suse, HP, etc... you name it.
> They are all in for the money and they do sell boxed copies of KDE ( with
> linux also :) ). Guess what, that has turned out to be a very good thing
> for KDE. The mix has actually been very benefitial for a lot of open source
> projects.
>
> Consider the recent offer of $200k to make linux run on the xbox. That can
> only help linux get more people working on that.
>
> > money has the long-standing tratition of tainting things with greed and
> > impeding progress/innovation.
>
> If anything, I can argue the opposite. Companies are usually forced to
> progress/innovate to be able to survive. If they don't move, they are left
> out of market. Companies such as the ones I mentioned earlier are
> constantly putting new features and fixing bugs in linux distributions, and
> helping kde in the process, to avoid being left out of the game.
> Now, money does not drive a tipical kde developer, but since most of them
> are not currently receiving anything, it can't hurt :)
> Please explain why you think money can hurt progress/innovation in KDE.
>
> > and the foundation of free software is exactly
> > that: free.
>
> It would still be as free as it is today. Nobody ever said anything about
> charging for bugs. I am talking about voluntary donations, or incentives
> from the users to the developers. It would be a form of gratitude from
> whoever wants to thank with money.
>
> > developers have to be free to work on whichever project they
> > think deserves their attention, not pushed into a project by the tasty
> > reward offered.
>
> They would still be free to work on whatever they see fit, I am not
> suggesting any restriction at all. And nobody would push nobody. Rather
> than a "push" it would be an incentive. And there is nothing wrong on
> giving incentives to developers, after all if someone is willing paying for
> fixing a bug, then the bug is hurting.
>
> It can be true that sometimes a developer might choose one bug over a more
> important one because of the reward. Here, I can see a point. However, it
> will also be true that developers will work more on kde just because they
> can get something out of it (this is a good thing). Also, there are some
> bugs or features that nobody want to fix/implement. Some of these are badly
> wanted by many users. Money would be a great way to give incentives to
> developers to work on them.
>
> > if financial rewards are suddenly available, you invite all the evils
> > that come with the concept of monetary exchange for services rendered,
>
> what "evils" are you talking about? I am not talking about suddenly putting
> an EULA on KDE, it is just donations.
>
> > rather
> > than operating the OpenSource movement on something more /open/ to
> > innovation: the need for free, stable and powerful software.
>
> How are donations less /open/?
>
>
>
>
> - Developers would win with this. They would receive something for their
> work. - Users would win with this. The most badly wanted bugs will
> supposedly get fixed sooner.
> - KDE would win with this. Developers will spend more time fixing bugs,
> because they have an extra incentive.
>
> I do not see what is wrong with this picture :)
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- -- 
Shane
http://www.shanewright.co.uk/
Public key: http://www.shanewright.co.uk/files/public_key.asc
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