Hi,

Peter Seebach wrote
>What if you could place bounties on given pieces of code?  For instance,
>I could place a $100 bounty on the LS-120 driver.  (In fact, if one
>gets added, I will happily pay the contributor $100...)  But, what if,
>once I announce that, other people could contribute to the bounty, in
>whatever quantities they feel comfortable with.
>
>Then, a web page somewhere could list what code people want, and how
>much it's worth to complete it.  People looking for projects, or needing
>some spare cash and willing to give away code for money, could look at
>the list, volunteer to provide one of the things in question, and then
>write it.  If core accepts the proposed changes, the people who pledged
>money to that cause send the author the money.  (Alternatively, money
>is sent to the web page maintainer, who can keep track of who pays and
>who doesn't, etc.)

I'd change that so that:
a) the people don't just loosely pledge, but actually send in something
legally binding. It's so easy to have forgotten the pledge (or to not be
able to pay it right now, maybe next quarter) when the code is actually
there.
b) there not just be a "first to submit gets the money".

If one did the like organizing centralized it would require several people. 
I suppose to let most of this work done by who wants it done in the single
case, i.e. 

Bounties for drivers:
- Hardware: LS-120 IDE   Contactperson: Peter Seebach <..>

and if someone wants to provide the driver they get named what the bounty
currently is worth and get a certain time "exclusive contract" in which to
deliver. Not getting any money because someone else beat you by half a day
for a week effort is acceptable for a hobbyist, but not very for someone
who lives off contract work.

There should be a "hardware loans/presents" part as well, as for the
hobbyists a loan of hardware to write a driver for it, and make that loan
permanent if they deliver would be more viable than money that'd need to
show up in income tax.

>Would this work?  Would anyone be interested in using such a system, from
>either end?

Me, from the bounty filling end .. I don't have enough time for writing
drivers. (-:

regards,
	spz
-- 
spz@serpens.swb.de (S.P.Zeidler)