Google pledges $50,000+ in GNOME Bounties

$50k would hire a decent coder for about four months, not a year. Once you factor in overhead and expenses, actual salary would less than $25k, at least here in the states. Remember, a good coder has been around for a while, he would probably subsist on more than a few CDs and Taco Bell. :)

A year of a really good coder, given he is Indian or Eastern European. Not some overpriced, mediocre US coder ;)

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:wq

I just have to say I totally agree. One coder guru could do wonders in a year and could work on more than one thing over time.
-WareKala

But there is a working menu editor:
Smeg is the "simple menu editor for GNOME"; it is no prototype, it actually works,
you can download it from http://www.realistanew.com/projects/smeg/

Maybe the devs who wrote those bounties were thinking about their own pet ideas and wallets? I agree the bounties are misguided. If for ~$30k all we get is a handful of eclectic and not very important features, that will be a shame.

...but are they worth it? Only the first four are worth the money in my opinion. GNOME has alot of need for improvements, and for example "shared music spaces" isn't one of those. I wish google had offered some bounty on more pressing matters. But, this is only my opinion.

-WareKala

As far as I know, the shared music space thingie has alot of legal issues. I don't think it is legal to stream music on your computer to other people unless they all have bought the album, or the piece of music is totally free. Besides, I don't know anyone who'd use Gaim for general purpose chat rooms. Of course, it's only my experience, but those who I know use gaim for person-to-person chat and a full-featured irc clients, or Skype, for more more general chatting. Also I don't think it's really that an easy feature to add.
-WareKala

It was my mistake then, sorry for that. Anyway the truth is that Gnome devs should prioritize fixing things first, then adding new stuff. Having someone develop a new program (which will also have bugs for some time, or more) isn't probably the best way to use the money? Also, not many people would be willing to do stuff for free, but having money offered for fixing things is a good way to make things happen.

Oh, and I definitely hope someone will speed up logging in! It takes ages now o_O

I'm trying to gather a list of annoying mistakes/bugs/missing things on my machine just to see how long it will take for them to be fixed.
-WareKala

Is that really true? I just can't believe it. First the splash, then this. Guess we all can have a big search party!

Honest, I'm pretty sure there's lots of interesting improvements in GNOME's bugzilla. Is it just me or does the KDE-bounties make more sense?
http://developer.kde.org/joining/googlecodeofsummer.html

Is it just me or does the KDE-bounties make more sense?

I think it may just be you. Look at these examples:

Implement the most innovative addition to the KDE framework...

If you think you have a vision on how the perfect desktop environment should look/work like this item is for you. Convey your message via whatever medium you want: movies, webpages, mockup screenshots... Remember to focus on usability. Remember that the technology is not a limiting factor in this entry so let your imagination go.

Just like the above entry but we're looking for the most innovative application and just like in the "framework addition" bounty your application doesn't have to be fully completed - it's the idea and innovation that count.

Well, that's certainly forward thinking -- but personally I'd call it pointless hand-waving in a bounty contest. You can quibble over the GNOME guys' vision, but they were being specific (even if they were specific about the wrong things). "Fix this specific problem and you win the money." To be fair, there are specifics later on in the KDE bounties, but you are criticising the GNOME bounties for being more focussed -- which is unfair. I mean, the KDE bounties read like "Make KDE really awesome and you can have some money."

While tempting, I have not made it a practice to censor here because my opinion of what is and isn't appropriate may differ from anothers point of view. I figure that people here are capable of judging for themselves, and moderating accordingly.

If the general concensus here was that readers would prefer I start moderating and removing some of the trash, it could be done.

I think the problem with trolling would be smaller if anonymous posting would be not allowed.

I think deleting posts are wrong, however disabling Anonymous posting would be completely fair. You have my vote.

My blog post was actually referring to some other posts here that were actually worth the read, not the bickering here.

Did you see that Novell just pimped Mono at the bottom of the bounty page? I wonder what Redhat has to say about that. Lots of sparks at Guadec....