[Foundation-l] Re: Rewards for developers

Sun Jul 25 01:26:49 UTC 2004

Anthere wrote:

> I would like that all developers (others may
> participate as well of course) help setting up a list
> to define how development tasks completed could be
> rewarded.

Heh. I was going to suggest a payment system for developers after my 
project deadline next week.

The core idea of my proposal is:

* developers should be paid every month
* developers who received money the previous month receive "voting
   power" (i.e. power to influence the proportions how money will be
   distributed) for the next month
* how much total money is awarded for the completion of a particular
   feature or bugfix is determined by the donors: with every donation,
   the donor can say "this-and-this much of this donation (but no more
   than, say, 25% of the donation) should go towards rewarding the
   completion of this-and-that feature/bugfix".

Then the whole thing would work approx. like this:

* Alice donates $20 and says "$5 of this should go to feature X"
* Bob donates $50 and says "$10 of this should go to feature X"
* Charlie The Developer suggests an implementation plan for X
* Doris The Developer makes a major start towards feature X
* Emily The Developer finishes feature X
* Developers who received money last month vote on what percentage of
   the feature was done by Charlie, Doris and Emily
* The votes are averaged out and may yield something like
   Charlie - 5%, Doris - 75%, Emily - 20%
* Charlie's Wikimedia account is increased by 75¢
* Doris's Wikimedia account is increased by $11.25
* Emily's account is increased by $3.00

This is my basic idea.

It is in part modelled after the "Bazaar" that LiveJournal once used to 
have (albeit only for one month, ironically).
Timwi