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I am the developer of Gmvault (http://www.gmvault.org http://www.gmvault.org) an open source tool having its development hosted on github (https://github.com/ga

by zoobert 14y ago

I am the developer of Gmvault (http://www.gmvault.org http://www.gmvault.org) an open source tool having its development hosted on github (https://github.com/gaubert/gmvault https://github.com/gaubert/gmvault). I really like the idea of crowd funding and would like my tool to be founded like that if possible as I would like it to be open source and available to anybody while providing enough money to run the development server. I even more like to idea of having bounties on bugs as this would help me prioritizing features and bug fixes while funding the development. However since the release of the tool in may I had around 20000 downloads but less the 20 persons supported the development by donating something. I still hope that having such a facility directly embedded in Github would allow people to be a bit more philanthropic and rewarding for the developers as often developers would probably want to continue full time the adventure of developing a product or a library.

alttab 14y ago
What if I gave you $150,000? Would you make the product to my specifications? Does this illustrate why this could be a channel to disrupt the spirit of open source software? Imagine Github does implement this. Now you have a bunch of coders who want to work on "open source" projects for money, hoping to get backers as if they did a Kickstarter project. Or maybe it could start an OSS Github "gold rush." Now that we have a bunch of money-hungry developers, it'd be pretty easy to de-rail or commandeer projects simply by donating a large portion of money. Now imagine a non OSS competitor starts contributing. Multiple things can happen: 1) Any innovation or development of features could be easily copied and incorporated into competitive projects for sale. 2) A developer gets "hooked" on that donation money and starts favoring the large donors' requests over others. 3) These requests could sabotage the quality or the focus of the project. 4) The donor could pull funding at this point and collapse development and support of the project. Full blown conspiracies aside, the whole point of OSS was to open up development for everyone to grow and learn, and to remove software development from the corruptible influence of money. I think others on this thread had a great idea, make it a "tip", and make it anonymous. We would still have to limit "tips" because anyone can make a huge tip and then e-mail a "ransom" letter to the developers to do stuff if they want to continue getting large tips. The previous ordered list applies here. Again, I'm going to an extreme and likely this sort of abuse wouldn't be rampant in a system like that. But involving money at all directly into the process sounds like it could do more harm than good. If you want to take donations, you can do a Kickstarter to get up and running and then take some sort of "beer" or micropayment service on your website. Github integrating this into their offering seems irresponsible to the OSS community at large.
- umrashrf 14y ago
  I agree with your cons but would ask if pros of that system outweigh cons?
  - alttab 14y ago
    I'm going to quote Biggie on this one: "The more money we come across, the more problems we see."
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  I agree with you, but I think you shouldn't have used the word "money-hungry developers". It's a bit too harsh IMO.
  - alttab 14y ago
    How is it harsh? I'm simply saying it would introduce a population of developers to Github that previously didn't participate and are only doing so because they can make money from it.
- yungchin 14y ago
  > the whole point of OSS was to open up development for everyone to grow and learn, and to remove software development from the corruptible influence of money That's sort of begging the question: "Will money disrupt OSS development? Well, yes of course, because the point of OSS is to prevent the corruptible influence of money." Lots of people working on OSS projects do so while on somebody's payroll, and they don't seem to derail those projects as a matter of course.
  - alttab 14y ago
    You point out a valid use-case. I think they fall into a couple of different categories: 1) Developers build OSS components that solve a larger business need for the organization. The fact they could modularize it and make it generic enough for open consumption is intrinsic motivation on part of the developer. In this case the "somebody" who is paying them doesn't really care about the OSS, just that they solve the larger task. 2) People build OSS projects on their own time, while working for someone else. 3) Someone is contracted or paid to build a solution for someone. Turns out it would be great OSS, and is given away for free afterwards. The contracting party is essentially paying for the development. 4) Then theres the case you point out. Where people pay others to explicitly build OSS, which I could be wrong but I don't see that happening that often, outside of maybe Redhat or something.
umrashrf 14y ago
That's my point. I usually end up with incomplete things because of lack of any incentive.
brittohalloran 14y ago
Bounties on bugs is a GREAT idea
whit537 14y ago
@zoobert Do you know about Gittip? https://www.gittip.com/github/gaubert/ https://www.gittip.com/github/gaubert/
- zoobert 14y ago
  No but I do know. Thanks. As said below bounties on bugs is a fantastic idea.

by zoobert 14y ago

alttab 14y ago

What if I gave you $150,000? Would you make the product to my specifications? Does this illustrate why this could be a channel to disrupt the spirit of open source software? Imagine Github does implement this. Now you have a bunch of coders who want to work on "open source" projects for money, hoping to get backers as if they did a Kickstarter project. Or maybe it could start an OSS Github "gold rush." Now that we have a bunch of money-hungry developers, it'd be pretty easy to de-rail or commandeer projects simply by donating a large portion of money. Now imagine a non OSS competitor starts contributing. Multiple things can happen: 1) Any innovation or development of features could be easily copied and incorporated into competitive projects for sale. 2) A developer gets "hooked" on that donation money and starts favoring the large donors' requests over others. 3) These requests could sabotage the quality or the focus of the project. 4) The donor could pull funding at this point and collapse development and support of the project. Full blown conspiracies aside, the whole point of OSS was to open up development for everyone to grow and learn, and to remove software development from the corruptible influence of money. I think others on this thread had a great idea, make it a "tip", and make it anonymous. We would still have to limit "tips" because anyone can make a huge tip and then e-mail a "ransom" letter to the developers to do stuff if they want to continue getting large tips. The previous ordered list applies here. Again, I'm going to an extreme and likely this sort of abuse wouldn't be rampant in a system like that. But involving money at all directly into the process sounds like it could do more harm than good. If you want to take donations, you can do a Kickstarter to get up and running and then take some sort of "beer" or micropayment service on your website. Github integrating this into their offering seems irresponsible to the OSS community at large.

umrashrf 14y ago
I agree with your cons but would ask if pros of that system outweigh cons?
- alttab 14y ago
  I'm going to quote Biggie on this one: "The more money we come across, the more problems we see."
pooriaazimi 14y ago
I agree with you, but I think you shouldn't have used the word "money-hungry developers". It's a bit too harsh IMO.
- alttab 14y ago
  How is it harsh? I'm simply saying it would introduce a population of developers to Github that previously didn't participate and are only doing so because they can make money from it.
yungchin 14y ago
> the whole point of OSS was to open up development for everyone to grow and learn, and to remove software development from the corruptible influence of money That's sort of begging the question: "Will money disrupt OSS development? Well, yes of course, because the point of OSS is to prevent the corruptible influence of money." Lots of people working on OSS projects do so while on somebody's payroll, and they don't seem to derail those projects as a matter of course.
- alttab 14y ago
  You point out a valid use-case. I think they fall into a couple of different categories: 1) Developers build OSS components that solve a larger business need for the organization. The fact they could modularize it and make it generic enough for open consumption is intrinsic motivation on part of the developer. In this case the "somebody" who is paying them doesn't really care about the OSS, just that they solve the larger task. 2) People build OSS projects on their own time, while working for someone else. 3) Someone is contracted or paid to build a solution for someone. Turns out it would be great OSS, and is given away for free afterwards. The contracting party is essentially paying for the development. 4) Then theres the case you point out. Where people pay others to explicitly build OSS, which I could be wrong but I don't see that happening that often, outside of maybe Redhat or something.

umrashrf 14y ago

That's my point. I usually end up with incomplete things because of lack of any incentive.

brittohalloran 14y ago

Bounties on bugs is a GREAT idea

whit537 14y ago

@zoobert Do you know about Gittip? https://www.gittip.com/github/gaubert/ https://www.gittip.com/github/gaubert/

zoobert 14y ago
No but I do know. Thanks. As said below bounties on bugs is a fantastic idea.