Re: It says sorry no bounties, but do bounties have to mean cash or a tshirt?

[Olav Vitters <olav bkor dhs org>]

I agree with the remarks made by Claus. I'll only add some things he
didn't answer upon.
(some time later) Ok.. above statement isn't true anymore ;)

On Thu, Jun 16, 2005 at 10:04:02PM -0700, Sean Plaice wrote:
> On 6/16/05, Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net> wrote:
> > Thanks for the update on Bugzilla voting. I didn't know it was
> > restricted to a number of votes. I thought about a fixed amount of pints
> > that one can spend in integer units on whatever is listed in bugzilla or
> > a general task manager.
> >
> > Now just add the possibilities to earn pints by fixing bugs,
> > translating, writing articles, or doing support, and you got an basic
> > economy working - including the positive, and some of the negative
> > effects. :)
>
> I think consideration of an alternative to the bugzilla votes should
> be considered. Bug and bounties are not necessarily the same thing,
> and while bugzilla is a good bug tracking system it will bring the
> burden of trying to work around making a bounty a bug.

As explained by Claus, a bug doesn't have to be a bug, it can also be a
RFE or a bounty. We already have bounties in Bugzilla.

> So a bounty isn't a bug? Not really, a bug could be a bounty but I see
> complications in trying to make it work both ways. I think best way to
> draw people in would be to present the bounties almost as a work
> order. A project maintainer creates a bounty, that could be for
> anything, fix a bug, produce a creative, anything that is "needed". I
> would stress that a project maintainer be the only person to create a
> bounty (unlike a bug in bugzilla which can be posted by anyone). This
> provides a level of authority and authenticity, and value to the task
> of the bounty.

I don't understand why this would be needed. Why is 'authority and
authenticity' needed?!? This doesn't seem to match with the money
system. Basically, if someone wants something done, I have no problems
with it. Your idea appears to me like the maintainer hiring extra persons.
My intention for bounties is to get more regular contributors. The
bounty being fixed is a nice extra.

> As such I not being anyone of any importance in the
> GNOME community could create a bug, and have someone else fix the bug.
> Where is the fame in that I am just some guy, how important was that
> bug? There is plenty of grey area to this but I think that to maintain
> a value to credit given the bounty should be presented by someone that
> really has that stature within the project to asses the value of the
> bounty.

That seems a too difficult system. I wouldn't expect maintainers to be
able to thinkup every bounty. The respect should come from the
appreciation that you did something that was requested by xx persons.
The points/pints/beers should be a way to 'show off'.
Another reason is that in the beginning I knew nobody. I still only
recognize a few names. My intention was to help. I do like feedback,
but having a request from someone with 5000 points would do the same
thing.

> That being said we also don't want to have a huge list of bounties
> like bugs in bugzilla, information overload will scare off potential
> contributor's. So for example a maintainer might say "Damn there are
> these 10 simple bugs in bugzilla in stable branch that should be
> addressed, but I need to keep working on X feature for in the
> development branch, I need someone to get these guys done". The
> maintainer would create a bounty that would be full filled upon
> completion of the 10 bugs listed in bugzilla, and weight the value of
> the bounty in pints/etc based on the value of having the bugs
> completed.

If the bounties are in Bugzilla, you can still link to them. See
http://www.gnome.org/bounties/

I can understand persons not being able to find a bug, but a listing of
all bounties is easy to provide. Why would another system be better?
You end up creating another Bugzilla. Oh and I'd assume most bounties
will be for something to code.

> Another reason to do this outside of bugzilla (though you might be
> able to do this in bugzilla i am no expert with it), is so that people
> can create teams. People can team up and acquire bounty pints for
> themselves and for their teams. What is more fun then being the top
> ranked bounty pint individual? Being part of the top ranked bounty
> pint team... I could easily see the team aspect generating a level of
> friendly competition between teams ala gentoo gnome hackers vs. ubuntu
> gnome hackers etc. Maintainers could be part of teams, but not able to
> acquire points from projects they maintain.

Correct, that isn't in Bugzilla. But, that it isn't in Bugzilla is not
really the reason. if I'd want something in Bugzilla, I would just add
it.
Maintainers not getting points is not ideal. Why would you want to
become a maintainer then?

> > Btw, it may be a weird idea but what's the alternative? Trying to manage
> > a few hundred contributors by knowing each of them? This is beyond the
> > possibilities of a gift (or pure exchange) economy.
>
> I agree, though I think this system would be less apropo for managing
> contributors but more as a hook to draw in contributors, and to raise
> attention to needed contributions. The more I think about it though we
> might not want to limit the bounties to just virtual 'pints'. The
> creation of a system were people can donate micro payments, or other
> things of value towards a bounty would be good. The bounty creator
> could leave a bounty open to have micro payments added to the bounty.
> People could then submit say via paypal or some other method to a
> bounty fund for that bounty. The person that full fills the bounty has
> the option of taking the money or donating the bounties micro payments
> back to a general GNOME fund for bounties. There could be some sort of
> multiplier applied to the bounty pints, if the money is not taken and
> put back into a general fund. The only reason I suggest this is
> because I have become less stingy personally with my age, I am more
> then happy to throw in say $1.00USD to $20.00USD if I get something I
> really want out of it. It would also let other entities such as
> corporations put their money where they see value, say Immendo, or
> Google, or redhat etc... This could pay off well especially if the
> bounties become popular to contributors that live in an area of the
> world that can take advantage of the value of currency exchange. There
> are tons of Chinese that play online MMORPG's mining materials to sell
> online for USD, and it works because the compensation they receive due
> to currency exchange is much greater then the amount paid.

Same as Claus, I don't want money to be involved, at all. This for lots
of reasons, a few of them are:
1. I want contributors wanting to contribute, not persons looking for
money. I saw this with one of the Google 'bounties', no extra's
performed other than exactly what was specified.
2. A maintainer still has to help that person (guidance + review).
Basically part of the work will be done/explained by the maintainer.
Why would that be for free? I fear we'll end up with all maintainers
wanting money / every bug turning into a bounty.
3. Honestly I'd think a system that isn't based on money is better. For
some persons even a small amount matters, that distorts things. Seeing
your patch rejected while you need/want that money -- I think it will
cause a backlash.
4. Handling money is messy. What is someone promises 20 USD and never
gives it? Even if payment must be done to some organization, what if
the bounty never gets fixed.

> They could also put up T-shirts, or other shwag that they want to
> entice participation. The more open the system is the more avenues of
> enticement to contribution can be followed.

Although I'd prefer a system that just uses points (something
that is valuable & appreciated, but is worth USD 0.0) a GNOME t-shirt
would be nice too.

> This would be a complex system since we would actually be dealing with
> cash, though I am sure the GNOME foundation could figure out the
> semantics of it.

I disagree. If you don't do a lot of work for it, it will not get done.
You can only hope someone who has the same idea does the work for you.

> I think I went on sort of a tangent for following up to a reply,
> either way it flowed from me so I figured I would run with it.

Fine to me :)

Anyway, after reading this whole lot I'd like to add that I'm thinking
of adding a scoring system to b.g.o. Votes are one way to achieve this
(one point per vote). Only votes cause whining, thus something else is
needed.
There should never be an argument as "this is worth/has ...
points/beers/votes, so it must be fixed asap". Bounties are for me just
another product in b.g.o. My intention is having a clean b.g.o and
nudging people to help is one of the ways I want to achieve that. This
means some of above answers might not make sense for a strictly bounty
type system.

-- 
Regards,
Olav