There is an article on slashdot about OSS Bounties. It got me thinking…and not directly about what the article/comments were talking about. I really saw it as a neat idea/addition to an existing feature request and donation system.
If your project already takes donations and has feature requests, you could just ask (as part of donation) which feature the donator is interested in (have a ‘no particular feature option too). Then, on your feature request page, provide an additional ‘donate’ link on each feature. There would really be no expectation of “If I pay for it…it should be implemented”. It would just be a way for the users to suggesting direction for the project while donating.
Will this bring a lot more money to an OSS Project, doubtful. I still like the idea.
This also made me think of the Programming Language stock trading game (btw…took me forever to track that down again…tons of google/slashdot/bloglines searches…google finally won with a search for: programming language market…first result found). It would be interesting to do something similar for OSS…I dunno what the payoff would be…just a fun way to see where your donations are going and seeing where other oss projects are.
