For the love of vector? - Bounty system for Vector linux?

[haywire]

I love vector linux but I see a few problems that I feel may be easily fixed by a bounty system.

I see this working tremendously in other open source or freeware os projects, most notably AROS.

Whats a bounty system? Bounties are set by the community and then people donate to those bounties.

If someone takes on a task and completes it, they get the bounty reward, or the total collected for that task.

I'd love to see cinelerra and kdenlive added to our repositories. If we had a bounty system, myself and anyone else who was equally interested in getting those done and added to our repository could donate by paypal to the bounty for each.

I'd like to see the enhancements to boot time like ubuntu 10.04 did... That could be a bounty.

I'd like to see a 50 wallpaper package available for vector linux, or new icon themes created, again these could be bounties.

Whatever it is the users want done or would like made available, a bounty could be created for doing those things.

A bounty system could also allow greater community input. If many people want a certain application added to the
repository or a task done for anything, they can create, donate or add to a bounty. When many people want to see
something, obviously it has more donations and someone is more likely to complete that task.

I would be happy to help in any way I can to get something like this started. What do you guys think about doing
something like this? I'd like to become more involved in the community here, vector is and has been by far my favorite
distro for several years now, and I think it could have a great future. I think a bounty system could help alot with that
future, and provide a means to have people help the efforts of our developers, as well as reward them.

Please post your thoughts on this here.

Steven

[stretchedthin]

haywire, I like the idea.  May even help increase community contribution as long as the money keeps flowing.  That flowing money may be the only downside, however.  Just to play devils advocate, what are the odds that people may hold back their contributions until the price is right?  That being said, I'd throw some bounty money towards a working mythtv package I could get going in Vectorlinux.  Still have to rely on mythbuntu for that.

[haywire]

In my experience with AROS, people often contribute multiple times to a single bounty. The bounty system took AROS from a dream to an almost total reality. Less then 2 years after initiating the bounty system, they had accellerated 3d video drivers, sound drivers, a working modern browers, integrated amiga os3.1 emulation, and much much more. Also remember, many of those projects had to be coded from scratch. I think Vector bounties would be easier because it would be mostly porting things from existing source.

We need someone at vector to handle the money,setting up a paypal address (which they already have) and perhaps start a webpage updating the list of bounties and donations donated so far. I would be happy to volenteer to do a web page so long as someone communicates the information to me. I would be also happy to donate to several bounties right away.

Myth tv would be a good bounty for sure, many people probably would find that very useful. If anyone else has any ideas for bounties, post them here!

Steven

[M0E-lnx]

I like this idea.

[haywire]

I think this would be a great idea to get more development going, and focusing on the needs of the end users. Not being critical to vector specifically, but many linux distros just don't hear the end users needs well. A bounty system insures that the things the end users want and need would be addressed, and usually in the order of demand.

How can we talk to the core developers to get this going? As I said I'd be happy to put up a webpage, maybe I should do a mock up just so everyone can see what it would look like?

Steven

[haywire]

Here is a mockup of what the website would be like, it would be simple, with some vector specific graphics, and list
open bounties, assigned bounties, and completed bounties. This is of course just a rough text idea of the info the
bounty website would have. Let me know what you guys think of this kind of template for a bounty website.

Current open bounties :

MythTv package for gslapt install.
CONTRIBUTE TO THIS BOUNTY - Paypal button
Bounty requirements - Package mythtv and all
dependancies so it will install from gslapt.
Bounty Status : Unassigned
Bounty Total - 100$
Contributors
Haywire       20$
stretchedthin 80$




Cinelerra package for gslapt install
CONTRIBUTE TO THIS BOUNTY - Paypal button
Bounty requirements - package cinelerra and all
dependancies so it will install from gslapt.
Bounty Status : unassigned
Bounty total : 120$
Contributors :
Haywire   100$
MisfiT    20$

Assigned bounties :

Kdenlive package for gslapt install

Bounty requirements - Package kdenlive and all
dependancies so it will install from gslapt.
Bounty status - Assigned to Haywire
Completion status - Not yet completed
Expected completion date : 8/1/2010
Bounty total - 180$
Contributors:
Haywire    100$
MisFit     20$
Unixuser   20$


Wallpaper enhancement package

Bounty requirements - Create a zip file
with 100 new wallpapers. 25 should be
vector linux specific, the remaining 75
should be high quality general wallpapers
for desktop use.
Bounty Status : Assigned to Haywire
Completion status : Not yet completed
Expected completion date : 7/1/2010
Bounty total : 50$
Contributors :
Haywire   20$
Misfit    20$
Unixuser  10$

Completed bounties :

Here we would list completed bounties, contributors and who
completed the bounties...


It would be simple, just a place people can go check the status of bounties, contribute to bounties and so on.
I think this is a great idea and I'd also be willing to put up some prizes in the form of some of that cafe vector
gear, like mousepads, shirts and so on for people who take on and complete some bounties.

Everyone, please contirbute your thoughts to this idea... What do we have to do to get it going? I don't want to
overstep my bounds as a user and just go set this up, though I could if everyone thought it was a good idea and
there was no objections.

Steven

[retired1af]

I've been thinking about this since I first read it early this morning. Something about it just doesn't sit right with me, and I can't quite put my finger on it.  Lord knows I could use the extra cash, especially with me being between jobs and not getting much joy in getting interviews, yet I still find myself leaning towards opposing this.

We're rapidly approaching a threshold where certain packages developed for one flavor, stands a good chance of not working with another. What do we, as packagers, package for? Do we do it for Standard? SOHO? KDE Classic? SOHO 6 is incorporating a LOT of new stuff, and once it goes Gold, we're going to start looking towards VL 7 and hopefully a 64-bit system. Right now, I have 3 versions of VL installed, and am leaning towards either a true Slack build or a Gentoo build. Honestly? I'd like to trim the VL installations down to one (maybe 2), and traditionally, I have always used SOHO. So if I use SOHO 6 to build packages with, it stands a very good chance of not working with the earlier flavors due to certain dependencies.

I think deep down, my primary concern regarding a "bounty" is what it may possibly do to our community. We've always done things for the good of the community without expecting any sort of compensation in return, other than a thank you. I, myself, just started to learn how to package so I could contribute back to the community that's given us a great distro.

I don't know. I'll have to think on it some more, but for now, I think I'd have to give a tentative "Nope".

[haywire]

I guess the problem I have with that argument is that we can include what flavor in the bounty requirements. The other problem I have is that some things never get done simply for the love of it. Suse, ubuntu, and many others already have kdenlive and cinelerra easily installable with a few mouse clicks for some time now.

Mythtv, some people as shown here have to use a different distrubution altogether just to use that application. It should be available for
vectorlinux. We still don't have any decent video editing applications available from gslapt, and by that I mean one that is non linear and not a simple storyboard like windows movie maker. There are 3 or 4 very good ones available for other distributions. This can cause many people who have a pressing need for such an application to switch distros. Vector is lagging behind in the multimedia area especially.

I myself am playing with xbuntu on a spare machine because I do alot of audio and video work, and the applications available there are three or four or five times what vector has available.

I do agree with you on the many flavors of vector now. It may be better to slim down to just a few so that development efforts can be more focused and require less resources.

The other thing I would say is that if you don't like the bounty system, your free not to contribute or take on any bounties.

Finally I would say. The general design of linux is great, but I see one major design flaw for most non programmer users...
We are dependent on the distro developers and packagers to provide us with the software we use. If we need software that
is not available or packaged we can put in a request, but that doesn't mean it will get done. A bounty system would enable us
to contribute to the things we need or want to use.

Steven

[stretchedthin]

haywire,
I've got a build of kdenlive working on Vectorlinux light.  However, it is not perfect. For one it seems to hate ogv files and crashes when you add a clip of that type,  avi', mpeg, and mp4 seem to be fine.  Also, not all of the buttons render with the pretty graphics they should, I think I missing a font. However, the buttons work as they should you just have to hunt around for them.
I can find a way to share this with you if you are interested.

[haywire]

Yes that would be fantastic. Now see if we had a bounty system and you did that, you'd get some bling!



Steven

[stretchedthin]

Well, I don't think I satisfied all your bounty requirements anyway, considering the missing fonts. I've got a feeling it will just run better in the new soho with it's new kdebase4 and kdelibs4. (Eager to try that out). It should run as I described in light and standard. 

However, I would think the Vector brass would still appreciate it if you followed through on the pledge from your previous thread...

BTW, please see my other thread... If you can package kdenlive or cinelerra for gslapt installation...

I will donate 50$ US to vectorlinux in your name by paypal. Yes either, or 100$ if you can do both...

Thanks!

Steven

I'm uploading to the repositories now.  Give me some feedback on it's performance.
stretch'

[haywire]

Do you mean installable from glaspt? I searched in gslapt but didn't find it, what are you calling it kdenlive?

[stretchedthin]

Do you mean installable from glaspt? I searched in gslapt but didn't find it, what are you calling it kdenlive?

I've uploaded it to my vectorcontrib folder, basically a staging area for newly built packages.  It then gets included in the repositories by the maintainer.  I uploaded on may 16th, but the repository maintainer has not included it yet. 

[haywire]

Thats good news, its means I am not retarded. Hopefully, someone will let us know when it is available for testing...

Steven

[stretchedthin]

If it doesn't show up soon or you just can't wait, I've got a dropbox folder I can share with you to get kdenlive and it's dependencies.  You will have to install the dependencies first as there would be no dependency checking like in gslapt.  Just pm me if you want to go that way.

Sorry for hijacking your thread.  Keep pursuing the subject, I think the bounty system has it's merits.