On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 6:14 AM, renato <rennabh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, I was wondering, what can we non-dev users do when our favorite > piece of FOSS software is lacking a little feature, but one that makes > the software for us of little or no use? > > I'm thinking of seq24 not working, since a year or so, with JACK > Transport - which for an app like seq24 makes it almost useless. It > really itches me and I'd like to do what's in my power to help fix it. > > I was thinking, since this would be (I think) a few hours of devs > work, couldn't I/we raise some money to pay a dev to do it? How would > I/we do it? > > In long term thinking, we could have a site where users propose a bug, > devs name a price for it, and when the money raising reaches that > quantity, the dev starts to work on it and when he fixes it he recieves > the money. Basically a mix of kickstarter and amazon's mechanical turk. There's no simple way that this can work. The dev that works on a particular problem has to be an expert with the software to be fixed. Usually this means being the one who wrote it in the first place. Also, you never know how long you'll spend working on a problem, until you actually do it. Anyway, the notion has been surviving for years--I'd say "search the archives", except I have no idea what terms would actually work. <puts on his devil's advocate hat> Suppose I write a potentially useful software, and then leave several bugs until people start funding it. Then, rake in the dough and fix the bugs (I already know) in record time. It changes the incentive whether and how to create software. </puts on his devil's advocate hat> But changing the incentive is the entire point, right? IMO--devs need no particular incentive. Funding conferences is a more attractive option--for those aspiring academics and those who are building a resume, free software conferences provide another route to peer-reviewed publications. Chuck _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
