Adopt a developer

Drysh · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 4:08 am Post subject: Adopt a developer

While reading the Forums I found some suggestions about giving more power to users. Most were dismissed with a simple argument: users don't contribute to Gentoo, so they shouldn't have an active voice in developement. I have to say I disagree in part: one of the importants things about Gentoo is the user base that contributes posting answers in these forums. But, how about make it possible for those who won't contribute with code directly to help in the development of Gentoo?

The idea:

- A monthly donation. It could be as small as $5 or $10 /month, so anyone could donate. The money should be used to hire developers.
- Those who donate get access to a special forum where they could post request to the hired developers. There could be a vote system based on how much you donate (each minimal donation amount = 1 vote), to decide what should be done first.
- Those users who donate should also have an active voice like if they were developers. That should be proportional to what the hired developers are contributing to the Gentoo project.

Is this an insane idea?

jmbsvicetto · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 4:31 am Post subject:

Drysh,

given the thread's title and what you're asking, I suggest you take a look at the adopt-a-dev project's page.
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Drysh · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:15 am Post subject:

Thanks. Somehow, my search didn't find that.

EDIT: I read the Adopt a Developer project, and it has nothing to do with what I'm talking here. That project is about donating things to developers, this idea is about hiring new developers payed by the comunity.

anello · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:44 am Post subject:

First of all, you can already donate as much money as you want to gentoo. Just click on the "donate" button/link on the upper right on gentoo.org!!!
Secondly, your idea is clearly against the idea of open source software. Giving some people a better access to information regarding the software for a money subscription is maybe a good business idea, but a horrible scenario for all poor students etc.
Thirdly, all devs are voluntary contributers sharing their spare time!
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Drysh · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:10 am Post subject:

anello · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:01 am Post subject:

Requesting features is already doable. Make a request on bugzilla or here on the forums and the devs will certainly look into it if it is useful in some way!

All you mention above is called "hiring a developer for my/your needs". Where is the relation to gentoo in that? I don't get it! If the price is right, I'm sure you'll find a dev for your needs. Maybe you should open up a funding website with all your wishes ... Good luck with that!
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Antonino Catinello | http://catinello.eu

Genone · Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 10:52 pm Post subject:

While I'm not on the board of trustees of the foundation I'm pretty sure that this idea (hiring developers and special privileges for users with the biggest wallets) wouldn't find many supporters. There already enough sites where you can pay money to get some programming tasks done, no point in replicating that within Gentoo, especially not if it's supposed to bypass the "get-it-committed-upstream" barrier (don't know if that was part of your idea).

Drysh · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:46 pm Post subject:

What I was thinking when I wrote it:

- Developers to implement what we need for Gentoo to be accepted in enterprise environment. Including GLEP 19, GLEP 24, and many many other things.

- Empower the user base to let them help deciding where should Gentoo go

- Atract small business that could help financing Gentoo with a small monthly fee

- Premiate exceptional developers that do things the community approve.

This isn't:

- A way to demand a feature that I want. I was thinking about something like vote with your money for what you think is important. (I'll write another post trying to explain this a little more)

- A finished idea. We need to develop this idea much more if we want something like this.

But... This should be part of a more ambicious project: How to improve the professional use of Gentoo.

Drysh · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:56 pm Post subject:

While trying to explain the post above, I had another idea.

What if we could donate to implement GLEPs? Part of the money would go to Gentoo, part to the developers working on that GLEP.

Genone · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:41 pm Post subject:

mrness · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:47 pm Post subject: