On Thursday 22 September 2011 Sven Burmeister wrote: > > What did he try? I think there things are mixed-up here. There is "fixing a > bug" which is most of the time different from "add a feature".
Not all work is the same, but I don't think the difference is between fixing bugs and adding features. Both can be a little or a lot of work depending on the scope and complexity of the change. But I think there are two criteria, which make a qualitative difference. The first is working on code which addresses use cases which are beyond the personal interest of developers, the ones which are not scratching an own itch. The second are changes which have externally imposed deadlines, e.g. to meet release deadlines of distributions, or to meet contracts with third parties. Both of these areas are difficult to address with pure volunteers. That's where professional commercial development makes sense. This is different from putting up bounties, though, but requires some conventional commercial backing. > And there is > "earn a living from bounties" and "get some extra money for what you > do/would have done anyway". There is a difference between getting adequately paid for a professional service, and getting a bit of extra money from sources like bounties or donations, which are not adequately compensating the development effort on a professional scale. It's great, if it's possible to create jobs around KDE or other free software, which pay through a reasonable business model, and which allow to do professionally paid work on free software. Where this works, I think we all benefit, and we have a good number of examples for this. The getting a bit of extra money is the problematic part. I would argue that this is almost never a good idea. You shouldn't sell your free software work cheap. You give up freedom, you give up motivation, for an inadequate compensation. > Ok, so if the money you earn while coding for KDE is from a company that's > not dangerous. It has its problems. You see that, if people contribute to free software because of their job, and drop everything, when they leave that job. That is pretty common and is a threat for the projects which have a lot of commercial contribution. But it also can work pretty well. The biggest reason is that it's a very clear setup. It's legally a clear situation. There is a clear definition of who decides about what is done, and who gets compensation for this work. > If you get money from google's summer of code (which is > advertised by KDE) it is not dangerous. It is very different from pure volunteer contributions, and it has a lot of challenges, which are difficult to address. That's why many mentors and administrators spend so much time and effort on getting the summer of code right. That's why it works, and because it's a setup very similar to a conventional paid job. > If you collect money through > donations – as Sebastian did – it's not dangerous. It is. Sebastian needs to make a living. That won't be possible from donations. So it's not a solution, but if at all, a short term measure to bridge a short time while finding a real solution. > But if you get a bounty > for a bug fix it becomes dangerous? How come? As said before, because it's selling your work cheap, because it negatively affects motivation, because it's difficult to distribute bounties in a fair way, because it's hard to get a legally and financially setup around this. > I mostly agree with you but it's simply a fact that there are issues in KDE > that "nobody" cares about about, loves, has time for or however you want to > call it. Issues that nobody enjoys fixing or nobody has time for fixing > etc. They get fixed if somebody feels like it and money can help to feel > like doing otherwise unsexy work. That's where distributions or other companies with a commercial interest in this work can come into play. This can work. Bounties are not likely to address this, as various examples have shown. > And I would also claim that those currently contributing do not suddenly > turn evil (I'm exaggerating) because they get some money for a bug fix. > There won't be hundreds of people just getting on the KDE train to earn > money. (And even if, every bug fixed is positive for KDE. Features might > be different.) They don't become evil, but money as incentive will negatively affect their motivation. There are scientific studies, which show, that this kind of extrinsic motivation actually leads to worse results than doing it without this incentive. If you do something because of money, and especially if it's little money, you won't do it with the same passion, and quality, as if you do it because you care, because you see a purpose, because it challenges your skills, because you get recognition in the community. > I would like to take a more positive approach. Those that contribute to KDE > do so because they want to, because they are able to and because they like > to, they decide which bugs and features to work on. Adding some money to > that will still leave it up to the people to decide what they want to work > on and how to share their money with their community. The positive approach is to do it he way we know it works, to follow our culture, and our values, to support people who work because of their passion, to mentor people who want to get started. Adding a money distribution problem between individuals to this equation can be harmful. From my point of view it's not worth the risk. -- Cornelius Schumacher <schumac...@kde.org> >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<
