On Thursday 22 September 2011 10:29:16 John Tapsell wrote: > > I think it would really help with bug reports if we let people > donate money towards getting bugs fixed. If there are lots of users > annoyed by a bug, and there's no longer a maintainer for that code, > then it makes a lot of sense to let those users contribute money > towards the bug fix until the financial incentive is large enough for > someone to step up and fix it.
As Harri already pointed out Don Sanders tried that a couple of years ago. It didn't work out. There are mainly two reasons for that. The first is that serious software development costs serious money. Getting enough money together from individual donators to actually competitively pay for the development is really difficult, because it's by far not done by two or three people pledging 50 EUR. So making a living from this kind of system would require massive numbers of supporters who continuously put in significant sums of money. This is really hard to achieve and certainly won't work for many developers. The second reason is that money is a horrible motivator. Of course everybody needs a certain amount of money to fulfill basic and some non-basic needs. But what motivates us is not getting money, but doing something that matters, doing something we are capable of doing well, having the freedom to do it in a way we feel is good and right. Money introduces a dangerous dynamics into this. It values extrinsic rewards over intrinsic rewards, opens the can of worms of fair distribution of money, and it requires a new level of administration, which is hard to get right. Doing free software because you love it works much better. Enjoy the technical challenges, enjoy being part of a wonderful community, enjoy the feeling of accomplishment, when you get something great done. This pays much better than money for fixing bugs. It pays in happiness, but it also pays materially. Successful involvement in free software projects is a booster for many carreers. This will put you into a situation where you can earn the serious money, and if you are a bit lucky even with something you really love. -- Cornelius Schumacher <schumac...@kde.org> >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<
