Donations in kde bug tracking system

[Thomas L. Bevan]

Hi,

The idea of donations is an interesting one, but I think
that a few things need consideration.

1. There already exists a good system 
for reporting and fixing bugs and 
requesting new features. 
2. Passing money on to individuals would bring
with it the thorny issue of who owns a piece of code
and/or bug fix.

At the moment there is a attitude of free and open
cooperation between opensource developers. Imagine if
I fixed a bug by basically correcting something equivalent 
to a typo in someone else's code and then pocketed 
$20 bucks. I'm sure that this would generate some amount of 
ill feeling. That other person might then be less inclined to 
submit work, hold off on uploading new code or become suspicious
of people who ask about how the code works.

You might find that instead of accelerating and directing opensource
development, it hinders it.

The other alternative might be to make donations, not to individuals, but 
to KDE or Debian or some other opensource project. The problem here though
would be convincing people that they are getting something extra for their 
money. After all, who is going to direct developers to fix some problem and 
not another. Opensource just doesn't work like that.

Tom

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