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Google pledges $50,000+ in GNOME Bounties

Gnome Foundation
Gnome Foundation

Google has recently announced their Summer of Code program, a program designed to introduce students to the world of Open Source Software Development. A list of these $4500 bounties can be found here. News.com also has a story covering the event.

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Another possibility: hire someone

For fifty thousand dollars, they could hire a full-time developer to work on GNOME projects of their choosing for a year. Or a team of 4 developers for a 3-month contract.

Just a thought. The bounty route offers some positive side-effects such as public exposure and the chance to interest a wide variety of people, but in my opinion, if you badly want something implemented, and you're prepared to pay that much money, hiring a small team of developers could be the most effective way to go.

not enough

$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. :)

$50k would hire a decent code by Anonymous George

a year

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

--
:wq

Agreed

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

My #1 Wish

Why can't the main Gnome menu be edited?

That's just embarrassing...

And inconvenient.

Oh my by Anonymous George
Menu Editor by Anonymous George

Smeg

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/

Two different styles by Anonymous George

Create your own bounties

or spend money on increasing other people's bounties. Here's more about it:

Bounty-Hacker.org

It's less restrictive than Google's bounties but, of course, payments will be lower, too.

Happy bounty'ing. :)

Wow

I actually just looked at the bounties! Some of those are probably no more than a few days work. Hmm, too bad I'm already over paid (plus have no skills, life is good). Some lucky developer on summer vacation is going to pick up some easy money here.

> Some of those are probably by Anonymous George

maybe

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.

Only a few days work

...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

I'd agree by Anonymous George

Dunno about that

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

> I wish google had offered s by Anonymous George

My mistake

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 c

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

Visionary? Handwaving

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."

yes they are. gnome in my opi by Anonymous George

Do you see something ?

http://www.gnome.org/bounties/Features.html#1844467459

hmm... ;-)

Something will happen in a not so far future.

sorry : by Anonymous George
hm? by Anonymous George

it's just amazing how corpora

it's just amazing how corporate support for gnome is taking off...

You're wrong by Anonymous George
exactly. kde will join as wel by Anonymous George
Well yes.. by Anonymous George
Well no... by Anonymous George
please, moderators, delete th by Anonymous George
wah! by foo

While tempting, I have not ma

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.

Anonymous Posting

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

agreed actually

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

YEAH! by foo
hp & target are posting here by Anonymous George

My blog post was actually ref

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

novell vs redhat: monome

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....