Author

Topic: Bitcoin Based Bounty Pool Software Platform for FOSS Projects - UPDATE (Read 4581 times)

sr. member
Activity: 288
Merit: 251
For coordinating / pooling to fund a bounty, you might consider FiveGrinder -- which already has Bitcoin goodness built-in:
  http://fivegrinder.com/help/start

Quote
In a more complex example, there are multiple developers that are represented by a developer team leader. In this case, the escrow agent negotiates with the team leader only and pays out only to him upon completion of a proposed feature. The team leader is in turn required to distribute the funds to the developers. The key here is that the escrow agent representing the stakeholders only needs to negotiate with and pay out to 1 other individual, and so the issues regarding the management of the development team are not the concern of the escrow agent.
- http://pyjs.org/wiki/bounties

Allocating "recognition" among a team of major and minor participants gets much more difficult when the recognition is a share allocated from a bounty.

I'm familiar with a project that is just getting started specifically with this aim (to crowdsource the process of recognizing participants in a fair manner).  The project is called PieTrust:
  http://www.pietrust.com
  http://www.pietrust.com/faq.html
  Here's PieTrust's founder speaking on Open Companies and PieTrust:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-6z_Z2Bi2k



Thanks for the info and links. I'm going to check out fivegrinder. I had heard of it before but never checked it out.
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
18DRwiDQPWDz6yiNfbysS5qNRFvnxCwKpE

dissipate donated 200 BTC. thank you
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
Interesting thoughts guys, but I say that now is the time to code rather than trying to guess what will happen.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/fund-favourite-bitcoin-projects-new-website-4543

I need a VPS. Provide me that tool so I can realise this project.

Also if anybody wants to send me BTC then I'll bump it up in my list of priorities.

What are your skills in regards to web app development? I'm willing to chip in 200 BTC. That should get you some hosting for awhile. Check out the hosts you can get here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Hosting

I created this site (art + code) ^^
http://britcoin.co.uk/
code: http://gitorious.org/intersango/master/trees/master
(I'm not the owner- it's a US company, but I'm managing it)

In fact what I posted was in fact a hacked up version of that exchange. Heh maybe that exchange could even be turned into a platform for Bitcoin style web apps.
sr. member
Activity: 288
Merit: 251
Interesting thoughts guys, but I say that now is the time to code rather than trying to guess what will happen.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/fund-favourite-bitcoin-projects-new-website-4543

I need a VPS. Provide me that tool so I can realise this project.

Also if anybody wants to send me BTC then I'll bump it up in my list of priorities.

What are your skills in regards to web app development? I'm willing to chip in 200 BTC. That should get you some hosting for awhile. Check out the hosts you can get here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Hosting
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
Interesting thoughts guys, but I say that now is the time to code rather than trying to guess what will happen.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/fund-favourite-bitcoin-projects-new-website-4543

I need a VPS. Provide me that tool so I can realise this project.

Also if anybody wants to send me BTC then I'll bump it up in my list of priorities.
member
Activity: 81
Merit: 10
My thoughts from our talk in IRC:

   In my opinion, small businesses would be the most interested because they are trying to develop web applications etc. and they need certain features [in FOSS].


Yes. And one critical part of the FOSS bounty idea is that those small businesses know where to post those feature requests, and that the BTC community sees them.  In other words bring the demand and supply together.
It will be challenging to reach those small businesses, but i do have one idea...
Those bounties are being posted somewhere, but where? If we could pull those bounties from where they are currently being posted, and posted them to the Bitcoin community, then sparks might fly!

So, essentially data mining for bounty jobs, find them and then post them to a central location that BTC holders could address their needs.

I'm pretty sure bounties are being posted here: http://www.elance.com/p/landing/provider.html

As dissipate mentioned: www.vworker.com also has jobs that could be mined.

There may be issues with pulling contact information from behind login-walls here (which would make it more of a manual process), but I think enough information could be gleaned to produce a viable market for demand.

Just kicking around some thoughts.  Also!  Dissipate, post a reply here if you decide to set up that group on Five Grinder Smiley
legendary
Activity: 2506
Merit: 1010
For coordinating / pooling to fund a bounty, you might consider FiveGrinder -- which already has Bitcoin goodness built-in:
  http://fivegrinder.com/help/start

Quote
In a more complex example, there are multiple developers that are represented by a developer team leader. In this case, the escrow agent negotiates with the team leader only and pays out only to him upon completion of a proposed feature. The team leader is in turn required to distribute the funds to the developers. The key here is that the escrow agent representing the stakeholders only needs to negotiate with and pay out to 1 other individual, and so the issues regarding the management of the development team are not the concern of the escrow agent.
- http://pyjs.org/wiki/bounties

Allocating "recognition" among a team of major and minor participants gets much more difficult when the recognition is a share allocated from a bounty.

I'm familiar with a project that is just getting started specifically with this aim (to crowdsource the process of recognizing participants in a fair manner).  The project is called PieTrust:
  http://www.pietrust.com
  http://www.pietrust.com/faq.html
  Here's PieTrust's founder speaking on Open Companies and PieTrust:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-6z_Z2Bi2k

sr. member
Activity: 288
Merit: 251
##################################################################################################
UPDATE:

Site is up and located here: http://bitcoin.cz.cc/

genjix has agreed to work on this at least part time. I have sent him 200 BTC for hosting costs. Others can donate here:

18DRwiDQPWDz6yiNfbysS5qNRFvnxCwKpE

http://blockexplorer.com/address/18DRwiDQPWDz6yiNfbysS5qNRFvnxCwKpE

Disclaimer: I cannot make any guarantees as to the quality or quantity of genjix's work or that he will even do anything at all. Please contact genjix directly for information on project timeline and any other details. He has agreed to update this thread periodically with his progress. DONATE AT YOUR OWN RISK
##################################################################################################

Has anyone thought about how awesome it would be if other FOSS projects started using Bitcoin for Bounty Pools? I recently brought up this idea on the mailing list for a fairly large open source project called Pyjamas (www.pyjs.org), which is a port of Google Web Toolkit (http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/) to Python (www.python.org). The Pyjamas project leader Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton (luke.leighton AT gmail.com) thought that bounty pools are a really good idea for his project and so I did a writeup on bounty pools on his wiki: http://pyjs.org/wiki/bounties (please read this before continuing).

So here is the plan. We start a bounty pool for some Pyjamas developers to develop a FOSS web application that can be used by FOSS projects (such as Pyjamas) to run bounty pools for particular features, matching stakeholders who desire particular features with developers who can implement them (to be paid in Bitcion).

I think that Bitcoin and the bounty pool software would be a match made in heaven for FOSS developers and stakeholders. Developers from all over the world could get paid in Bitcoin for doing valuable work for stakeholders such as small businesses that need new features. And I think that FOSS software developers in general are a great group to get to adopt Bitcoin to grow the Bitcoin economy for a few reasons. First, they will have the technical background to understand Bitcoin and its advantages. Second, they are probably a lot more willing to accept payment in something that is volatile in value since many may not be receiving any monetary payment for their work now. Third, because of the second reason, they won't be relying on their Bitcoin revenue to pay for their bills so they won't be as concerned about converting it to a fiat currency. Fourth, Bitcoin is in line with the FOSS philosophy (it being a FOSS project itself) with the huge bonus of not a single bit cent going to central banks, corrupt governments or large government influenced corporations.

For those of you who are 'old time' miners out there who are sitting on a fat wallet, this could be the bounty pool for you to put some BTC into. If you put some BTC into this project, you could end up significantly growing the Bitcoin economy, thus increasing the value of BTC and your wallets.

I have been brainstorming about what kinds of features we would want to have in a Bitcoin Bounty Pool software platform. Here are some general features I came up with:

1. Rating system for escrow agents and developers.

2. Easily viewable Bitcoin escrow accounts (similar to blockexplorer.com)

3. Directory of Bounty Pools that is sortable by a variety of criteria (e.g. programming languages and time estimates)

4. Email and messaging alerts for developers based on keywords (e.g. PHP, Java, C++, Flash)

There are many more features to be mulled over. In any event, I am willing to put 100 BTC into this bounty pool, and possibly more if others are interested. Also, if there are interested individuals here, we can get in touch with the Pyjamas folks who could develop this application using Pyjamas.
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