It doesn't have to work the way that I'm describing here; I just believe that if it does, devcoins and
http://devtome.com in particular will become much more valuable much more quickly. It's a more capitalist way of doing things.
There can be little argument that
Capitalism is competition by definition, while
Open Source is cooperation by definition. It is becoming more obvious the
Bounty System is being shaped by the
Capitalist mindset not the
Open Source cooperative one.
I respectfully disagree. Capitalism is not the opposite of cooperation, and you're mixing metaphors. Capitalism is an economic process where the risk and reward are assumed by the few, with decisions made by everyone. Modern communism (which I think you were referring to) is an economic process where the risk and reward are assumed by everyone, but decisions made by few. Both systems work, except communist economies are slower to move, because the decisions on whether to take risks are centralized, and bad decisions affect everyone. In a capital system, every programmer makes their own decision whether to attempt the effort or not, and they assume all risk of failure...in other words, it sucks more for them if they don't "win". This is why capitalist economies perform faster than communist ones - risk of failure is extremely motivating, and people have the freedom to choose not to take it. Communism allows incompetence to fester, but will still work if the
cost of failure is nil for everyone. The point behind devcoin is to progress open source, and both will do it, but one will be faster until its not, in which case, stop using it then.
Regarding code, applying capitalistic risk to the bounty system
does not close the source, and if open source is cooperative as you say, how can it then be less cooperative? Capitalism vs Modern Communism is about who assumes the risk of failure.
The Bounty System, if what is being sold here on this thread is true, needs to me more programmer centric rather than end user centric.
Let's flip things on it's head with an example approach...
Say the programmer codes a program and then posts it to the project/Bounty site to be voted on to see if it should be added to that cycle's shares. Perhaps it could remain on the list to be voted upon until it receives enough votes to take it off the list. If it does not get enough votes it does not receive any shares and if it does get enough votes it does.
It could also be voted as to how many shares it should get. Then it is not capitalist driven but coder driven. The same Open Source will make it to the market regardless of it getting a share split or not. There is no less risk to the programmer than the Bounty System's present form in my opinion.
If Capitalists, that cannot program, want a program then they can dig into their DevCoin Wallets and pay programmers to do it. Of course all such requests would be released to Open Source because that is the whole concept behind DevCoins right?
That would be an example of flipping the Bounty System on it's head and putting it in the hands of Open Source programmers and out of the hands of Capitalists who can't program.
Voting only really works if people have something to lose. If it's arbitrary voting by everyday users, for nothing but a random click, it doesn't create an accurate representation of what people actually want. Valve tried this with their Greenlight system, and have recognized what a horrible failure it was in reducing their workload, or getting better games out. If they had made people
pay to vote for greenlight games, they'd have a much more realistic demand plot, because people would only vote for things they
actually cared about. If the bounty system you talk about makes people contribute to the bounty as their vote, then that would work fine...but then basically you've got capitalists who are directing open source programmers...
Also, project managers are valuable, and not all programmers would make good ones.
