2013-04-17 - [GRASE-Hotspot] Future “paid” development of features

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From: Tim White <ti***8@gmail.com>
Message Hash: 00dcc9e109cc4e70eb6e7d782ba6c8e571cb2abb2a8895cd2da792f739430d00
Message ID: <516F6A23.5090106@gmail.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 2013-04-17 20:36:03 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:36:03 +1000

Raw message 

This is just a general announcement. This does not affect normal 
development or the free nature of the project.
All future "paid" development work on Hotspot related features will be 
in the form of bounties. I will investigate a way to add Bounties and/or 
votes to the feature/bug tracker, so that people can register their 
interest in which features get worked on, and if people are willing to 
pay for work to be done, they can assign a bounty to it.

Bounties will replace any "contract" (or $ per hour) work that some 
people have enquired about. This removes the pressure of trying to get 
certain features implemented, while still allowing a developer to get 
paid for some work. It also removes the unknown of how much a feature 
will cost someone.

The way bounties will work, is that you can put a bounty amount on a 
feature, and once that feature has been implemented and released, and 
meets the requirements of the feature, you then pay the bounty. It is 
important to discuss implementation of a feature so that there are no 
disagreements after it's implemented as to what was wanted. I expect 
most of that discussion to take place on the mailing list, and then 
probably a comment will be added to the tracker with implementation details.

This also allows  other developers to submit patches for bounties. If 
you are considering this, please first talk to the list about your 
intentions before coding, as someone may already be working on it. All 
patches for bounties will need to be good quality coding, and fit with 
the current code base.

All code developed for a bounty is still copyright to the person who 
writes the code, and must be licensed to the project to fit with the 
projects current license. (Currently GPL)

This doesn't change the projects free status in anyway, it is a way of 
encouraging the implementation of features that people want. Due to work 
and family commitments I have increasingly less time available to work 
on features, and I don't want to see the project stagnate.

This doesn't change or replace donations. I like to view a donation as a 
way of saying thankyou for the project and all the work that has already 
been done, and a bounty as an incentive to continue work.

All your donations are much appreciated, and last year they allowed me 
to replace my computer which had died after many years.

Thank you, and I look forward to your feedback about this proposal.

Tim

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