[openbeos] Re: Bounties

  • From: Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:13:51 +0200

Hi Karl,

> I learned a while ago not to consult this list for anything other than 
> dev questions. And that's what my post was primarily about. Getting 
> answers to what bounties are needed. I don't want to put pressure on 
> the developers (as you say below) or 'bug' them with this issue, which 
> was why I didn't mail the list about bounties in the first place. I 
> leave developing to you, let us worry about this. There are several 
> members at Haikuware that are Haiku developers, and I thought news 
> would travel through them anyways. Seems I can't do anything right!

Please don't take it like that. I'm sorry if I sounded harsh, I didn't 
actually mean to.

With "after the fact" I only meant the vote for the bounty place. I wasn't 
aware of the voting and would have voted to put any bounty effort on the 
official Haiku site.

> I'm not asking how to run it really, I just wanted to know from the
> inside what the developers felt was missing and the bounties that
> could be of use.

As the list of possible bounties to chose from, I would _not_ use the 
obvious wishlist (JAVA, WebKit, ...). Instead I would present a *short* 
list of small items, which are realistic to interest an existing or new 
developer. In another words, put the goal of "resulting in the completion 
of one or more items" at the front while taking the current developer 
situation into account. That means to avoid destroying the possible success 
of the bounty project by any illusions of what is possible with our current 
developer situation. Remove any items from the list, where you have any 
doubts that the item might be completed, because then it is simply a wish 
item, but would take away donations from actually achievable items. Like I 
said, the last four items are good ones IMHO.


> > Yes, people realise that a bounty system can be helpful if done
> > > right, we said that before, but your list again tells me, that you 
> > > have not
> > > listened to the input you did get from Haiku devs before.
> >
> >
> > I have listened to input from both sides and made compromises, and am 
> > listening to it now. If you 
> > read<http://www.haikuware.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=
> > 43&Itemid=1>the original post where I made this list, it says that I'm 
> > not sure these are the right things, they are merely ideas, and that I 
> > would consult Haiku developers first before starting anything. And so 
> > far I haven't really got any other input outside of that list. The 
> > particular news article got around
> > 500 hits, of the ~70 members at Haikuware (of which several members are
> > Haiku devs) nobody had any input either. So... I do so see mention of a 
> > virtual memory manager here. Is this possible/achievable/too difficult?

That particular item would need clarification IMHO. I think Euan meant a 
memory manager that would take care of managing graphics memory too? I 
don't know, in any case, the virtual memory subsystem in Haiku is actively 
being worked on. But yes, individual pieces of useful code for the Haiku 
tree (without visible results like an application or driver) are possibly a 
good candidate as well. For example, I'd like a faster BRegion 
implementation. But too many of such items, and you spread the funding too 
much, or risk some people not understanding the usefulness of some items.


> One more thing, eventually Haiku should name an official 3rd party 
> repository, because although an operating system is nice, you need 
> software for it. Maybe people don't want to develop for the OS itself 
> but applications for it. There's no info on Haiku about how to do that, 
> where to do that etc. This issue was raised a while ago in this 
> thread<//www.freelists.org/archives/openbeos/06-2007/msg00149.html>
> . I've made the announcement that OSDrawer would handle the bounties. 
> Can't Haiku do the same for 3rd party apps? Just a suggestion!

I agree it might be nice (in terms of generating a feeling of "unity"), but 
there are lots of services already out there, I mean to say, the fact that 
Haiku does not endorse any service should not be stopping anyone from 
writing Haiku apps. And the Haiku website already has the infrastructure to 
serve as a communication platform about such efforts.

Best regards,
-Stephan





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