Erik Moeller wrote:
Caveat lector: The system which I think should be used by the Wikimedia Foundation is different. With GNOME's bounty system, you have potentially the situation where two developers hack away on the same stuff, but only one of them (who submits the code earlier) gets paid.
I already addressed this problem by saying that we should simply introduce a policy that whoever wants to work on a bug should set themselves as the assignee of the relevant bug entry in BugZilla.
I think there should be an open call for tenders process, where a technical-minded steering committee appointed or elected by the foundation outlines certain key tasks, and the developers can name the conditions under which they are willing to complete them
This is quite an involved process; all this evaluation and negotiation takes time and energy, and may not be worth it for small and simple bugs/features. Personally, I think the system would be most pleasant if people could just assign a bug to them and start working on it straight away.
As far as I'm aware, you've never replied to my suggested system -- do you have any opinion on it? If you think it is unsuitable, could you deliver some constructive criticism?
Because "bounty" carries strong connotations of competition rather than cooperation, I would like us to stop using that word, at least when referring to the proposal described above. Instead, it should be described as a tender process.
I never liked the term "bounty" either because it reminds me of a chocolate bar. ;-)
The system I described would probably most sensibly be called a "Bazaar", since it is modelled after the LiveJournal Bazaar.
Timwi