On Sat, 1 May 2010, Thomas Martitz wrote:

> Not all. I think boundy/paid work is a good way to get stuff actually done
> in the FOSS world since otherwise work will only be done on a "yea, in this
> moment I'm concerned about this, but maybe not anymore next week" - if at
> all. People getting paid to work on FOSS is not too uncommon so I would
> appreciate if such statements wouldn't be made on behalf of a project.

(We don't have anyone who speaks on the behalf of the project, and I think
people in this thread have clarified that they speak for themselves. I too
speak only for myself.)

People getting paid in FOSS is very common. Bounty-schemes that works out fine
is rare.

It's basically fine if person A pays person B to do something for FOSS, as
that's a business deal like any other.

When you go "bounty" there's suddenly a race, and there's suddendly a
situation where the winner takes it all. It makes it an individual act to get
the money rather that to help the project. You may take shortcuts, ignore
problems and more, just to be able to claim the money. If you don't, perhaps
your competitors do? No, a bounty is a tricky thing to work out right IMHO.

I really recommend everyone to read here =>

         http://producingoss.com/en/money.html

> I like the idea of bounties, because it still works good together with the
> open source idea.

I disagree. Bounties are very hard to make work in the open source spirit. I
believe it _can_ be done, but it's not easy.

-- 
  / daniel.haxx.se