[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Would issue "bounties" make contributing to ...
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       Ask HN: Would issue "bounties" make contributing to open source
       more appealing?
        
       I'm building an open source company (https://github.com/pyroscope-
       io/pyroscope) where we're very upfront about intent to eventually
       monetize via cloud-hosted version as many open source companies do.
       We, in a way, have financial upside to people completing (some) of
       the issues we've posted, so sometimes it feels like it would be
       mutually beneficial to pass some of that through to the
       contributors as people contribute.  I'm wondering... if we added a
       "bounty/reward" in the issue text that said we'd pay $X amount for
       someone to resolve the issue, would that make people more or less
       likely to contribute?  On one hand it seems to go against the
       historic "vibe" of open-source, but on the other commercial open-
       source seems much more acceptable these days and would maybe be a
       nice bonus for the. contributor.  Any thoughts, experience, or
       ideas here? Anyone have experience really incentivizing people to
       contribute to open source?
        
       Author : Rperry2174
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2021-04-14 22:08 UTC (51 minutes ago)
        
       | edoceo wrote:
       | I've seen this a few ways, tried similar with some of our FOSS
       | bits. Was easier to just get a few via 1099s to close many bugs
       | than to manage dozens of one-offs.
        
         | Rperry2174 wrote:
         | How did you convey that you would pay for them? For example I
         | was thinking of adding a tag here
         | (https://github.com/pyroscope-io/pyroscope/issues) similar to
         | "good first issue" that says something like "bounty"
        
       | ksm1717 wrote:
       | I think a bulletproof implementation of this would be a key
       | enabler for a decentralized autonomous (anonymous) organization
        
         | Rperry2174 wrote:
         | Not sure if it would work for 100% decentralized / 100%
         | anonymous because someone has to be the authority on whether or
         | not to accept the PR right?
        
           | ksm1717 wrote:
           | You can trade bounty chips for POWER in the repo. And
           | contributors could be anonymous, maybe not maintainers.
        
       | lrvick wrote:
       | LBRY does this with success.
        
         | Rperry2174 wrote:
         | You're saying they incentivize people to contribute to their
         | github repo (https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-desktop/issues)?
         | 
         | Or are you saying that they specifically pay people to do so?
        
       | remisharrock wrote:
       | All your ideas are of value for our FLOSS MOOC! I'll make sure we
       | integrate some of these ideas in it. If you're interested and
       | want to contribute: https://gitlab.com/mooc-floss/mooc-floss/
        
       | dboreham wrote:
       | No, this model doesn't work for me.
        
       | erezsh wrote:
       | It would make me more likely to contribute, _if_ it was an
       | appropriate amount of compensation for that issue.
       | 
       | In that case, I would also want to have a clear understanding of
       | under what conditions my pull request will be accepted, and when.
        
       | obsequiosity wrote:
       | Like this? https://rysolv.com/
        
       | neolog wrote:
       | Why not just hire a contractor?
        
         | Rperry2174 wrote:
         | Yeah thats exactly what we were thinking of doing...And then as
         | we were sending them the "contract" it turned out we were
         | effectively just linking to github issues...
         | 
         | So then I thought "How have I never seen a github issue where
         | someone just puts in the issue 'I'll pay you X to do this'"?
        
           | codetrotter wrote:
           | > How have I never seen a github issue where someone just
           | puts in the issue 'I'll pay you X to do this'
           | 
           | Here's an example of that, kind of:
           | https://github.com/debauchee/barrier/issues/109
        
       | kjrose wrote:
       | This idea has been around for a long time. I've always found that
       | it never gets much traction. A combination of the amount of money
       | offered and the amount of work required never really lines up.
        
       | qbasic_forever wrote:
       | Well, one sure-fire way to make sure you can turn money into
       | resolved issues is to hire people...
        
       | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
       | Well https://www.bountysource.com/ exists, so _someone_ seems to
       | be doing it. Unfortunately I couldn 't say how successful it is.
        
         | ChrisGranger wrote:
         | There's also https://issuehunt.io/ which seems to be the same
         | idea.
        
         | Nowado wrote:
         | Is this service ESCROW? It feels like 'number on the bounty' to
         | 'actual payout' ratio may be not great otherwise.
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-14 23:00 UTC)