[haiku-inc] Re: Updating the donat-o-meter...
- From: pulkomandy <pulkomandy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-inc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 16:36:41 +0200
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 10:08:40AM -0400, Karl vom Dorff wrote:
> >
> >
> > Finally, remember that it's nice to setup bounties, but you have to find
> > a developer who wants to work on the features. I would start by asking
> > the developers how they want to be paid and what they would like to work
> > on (which is what Haiku, Inc. is doing). Bounties that don't get claimed
> > are useless.
> >
>
> All these arguments are valid for GSOC too though.
It's slightly different. GSoC is not using Haiku, Inc. money, the
pay is quite high compared to the amount of work needed (the students
are earning more than I do!), there is a mentor tracking the student
progress and warning him when things are going wrong, and goals can be
adjusted mid course.
To make more obvious the differences with plain bounties:
* This targets only students with little experience. They need to be
actively mentored, so these projects don't move our codebase forward.
Instead they distract our developers from more useful tasks. But there's
the hope that the student will stick with the project and become an open
source contributor, submitting patches to us for free.
* Google is acting as an arbiter in case of problems, and goals can be
adjusted, which reduces the failure risk in a significant way.
* In my case, when I was a student working for GSoC 2009, I was in the
same mood as I am for my contract work now: I didn't do this for the
money, but to get more experience with real-world software development,
and to put Google on my resumé. I should add that my parents covered
most of my expenses as a student and then I could risk doing bounty
style work like that without worrying about not being able to pay the
bills.
As a result, we can't expect bounties to attract seasoned programmers.
They might be interesting for students or the like (as a kind of
continuous GSoC), but these need active mentoring from our already very
busy developer team.
>
> >
> > And once again, bountysource is up and running and waiting for people to
> > inject money into it. Karl, you can advertise this at Haikuware. We can
> > also add information about it on the Haiku website. But I still think
> > this doesn't need to involve Haiku, Inc. They CAN donate to bounties
> > there if they decide that's a good way to spend their money.
> >
>
> It is very strange. Haiku Inc. can get involved in funding decisions for
> contract work, but not for bounties?
You are still getting this backwards. What happens is developers ask
Haiku, Inc. wether they want to grant funds to some devs or a particular
task, and Haiku, Inc. decides if that's a good use for their own funds.
If a developer or someone else asked Haiku, Inc. to donate money to a
bounty, they would use the same decision process to decide wether it's
good use of their money. Setting up the infrastructure in either case is
not Haiku, Inc. job. In the case of contract work, I created a
single-person company specifically for this, and the administrative
burden is mostly on my side.
> I don't understand how it hurts to publicize a different way of fundraising
> and work. It is just a bonus if someone applies. I believe it was you
> yourself that admitted that you would consider bounties if they were
> attractive enough - so make them attractive enough. Only Haiku Inc. can
> make these decisions.
No, you are wrong. Publicizing things on the haiku-os website is done by
clicking the "submit article" button. Anyone can do that. The articles
are moderated by the Haiku project website team, not by Haiku, Inc.
Haiku, Inc. runs a separate website (www.haiku-inc.org) for their own
news and other information.
I think I have explained why I would much prefer Haiku, Inc. to continue
using the pay-per-hour scheme rather than bounties. But again, this is
only my personal opinion, I don't know what other developers think. If
they think it is a great idea, they have bountysource to use, can
advertise it on the website, and can ask Haiku, Inc. to fuel the
bounties if they think that's the way to go. I won't; but that's only my
problem.
--
Adrien.
Other related posts:
