Put Your Money Where Your Open Source Is
While poking around the dspam site today I came across link for feature requests. Out of curiosity I dropped into the page to see what nifty things are on the horizon for combating V1a&ara notes and came across a very interesting approach to work scheduling in an open source project: auctioning.
As with virtually any other open source project there is a place where users can tell the code creators what else they would like for free. The difference here is that in addition to posting just the request users are able to post just how much they are willing to pay for it. Thus, effectively creating a bidding situation for the time of the developers and a clever way to infuse cash into the project…all while subtly reinforcing the concept that this stuff has value.
The site states that the numeric values are not “bounties”, but it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see where this could go. Heck, the money may not present an opportunity for outsiders to work on stuff, but it is most assuredly affecting internal development focus.
Call me crazy, but I think we may be seeing the future of software development here.