In message <199712220922.KAA13711@serpens.swb.de>, "S.P.Zeidler" writes:
>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".

Well, I'd assume that we'd want some kind of 'dibs', or at the very least,
notification that work is in progress.

>If one did the like organizing centralized it would require several people. 

I dunno; a good CGI script could do it.  ;)

>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.

True - I think we'd need to assume that interested parties have to express
interest, and leave it to them to look at the other people working on a
project, and perhaps form teams.

>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.

Hey, that could be cool.

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

Yeah, Me Too mostly, but if someone were to put a bounty on 'a program to
unsort its input', I'd be there!  :)

-s