On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 03:44:20 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
[..]
>
> Unfortunately, I can't estimate when the bounty system will be ready because it depends on the company. However, if anyone is willing to apply a bounty to an issue right now, then they can let me know and I can launch it sooner. I just need a specific Bugzilla issue and a dollar amount to get it started.

Apart from the legal issues that were mentioned above and make sense, of course, why wasn't a proper bounty system implemented years ago? Are you telling people that the years since the founding of the D Foundation have been wasted in this respect? And now you say that you "cannot estimate when the bounty system will be ready because it depends on the company" only to inform people in the next sentence that you could launch it sooner, because all that is needed is an issue and a dollar amount. Was the community informed about this? If not why wasn't the community informed earlier?

The thing is that Basil is right when he says that there is something wrong with the system. You can go on about it being a voluntary effort all you want, but the fact of the matter is that if the Foundation had done its job properly, this would never have happened. Basil could have just picked a bounty. So don't deflect from the real issue the OP raised by talking about his approach / expectations etc. Your answer shows that the D Foundation does have a problem here. And then this gem:

"I just went through my email history to confirm it. Sebastian contacted BountySource last year and they refunded all of the bounties that were in the system at that time to the respective donors. I would have expected the listed issues to have been deleted as well.

However, the account is still open and a couple of bounties have been posted since then, so it obviously still works."

Oh, man. Does anybody in the Foundation know what everybody else is doing? Is the D Foundation just a bureaucratic facade and in reality it's the amateurish "chaos as usual"?

It'd be a pity if you lost Basil as a contributor, but this situation could have been avoided by better planning. If I were you, I'd try to make him change his mind, but instead you chose to be all official about it and give him a lecture about the law and voluntary efforts. This flies in the face of your usual mantra of D being a community effort and a "meritocracy". Your handling of this issue doesn't exactly encourage people to contribute, because they see what they get at the end of the day, a kick up the a**e. You know, a bit of common sense can get you a long way.

On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 03:44:20 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 21:22:38 UTC, Basile B. wrote:
>
>>
>> The reply from the foundation was something like : "we cant do that because now we are a legal entity and also this would make other contributors jealous".
>
> Like it or not, the D Language Foundation is a legal entity that must abide by the rules. They can't just be sending money out to anyone who asks for it via email. Payments made have to either be for something that was made public beforehand or through contracts. Otherwise, there are going to be legal issues.
>
> I talked with a company a few weeks back that wants to offer bounties for several Bugzilla issues. I'm currently awaiting news that they have approval for it and know what their budget is. When I get the word I'll be setting up a bounty system on Flipcause. The company will seed it, applying money to the issues they care about. Anyone will be able to donate to those issues or request to set up a bounty on other issues. The Foundation will then be able to pay out bounties to anyone who fixes those issues.
>
> But it simply can't happen by asking for money via email, no matter how much anyone would like to help you. As an alternative, you could always set up a PayPal account to accept donations, or a Patreon account to fund your bug fixing. I'm sure there are people here who would be willing to help out.
>
> Unfortunately, I can't estimate when the bounty system will be ready because it depends on the company. However, if anyone is willing to apply a bounty to an issue right now, then they can let me know and I can launch it sooner. I just need a specific Bugzilla issue and a dollar amount to get it started.

Yes, paying bounty to various people around the world is an administrative nightmare that would cost even more by itself.

I would go another direction. If the foundation has the money, why not hire a person or two to do development and fixes. Priority could be based on top contributes wishes. Just having a few people is more manageable when it comes to byrocracy.

Hiring students is more difficult but cheaper as usually it must be on a project where they can obtain university credits.

On 24/07/2019 8:58 PM, IGotD- wrote:
> I would go another direction. If the foundation has the money, why not hire a person or two to do development and fixes. Priority could be based on top contributes wishes. Just having a few people is more manageable when it comes to byrocracy.

That is very expensive and as I understand it is out of scope of DLF.

> Hiring students is more difficult but cheaper as usually it must be on a project where they can obtain university credits.

It is also a Trojan Horse in introducing D into the University.
It is a brilliant long term strategy.

If it makes you feel any better, I work full time on D. The Foundation has never sent me any money, other than expense reports where I provide receipts.

On the other hand, many contributors to D have landed well paying jobs as a direct result.

On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 08:47:26 UTC, Chris wrote:

>
> Apart from the legal issues that were mentioned above and make sense, of course, why wasn't a proper bounty system implemented years ago? Are you telling people that the years since the
> founding of the D Foundation have been wasted in this respect?

Someone set up the bounty source account years ago. And apparently no one was taking advantage of it.

> And now you say that you "cannot estimate when the bounty system will be ready because it depends on the company" only to inform people in the next sentence that you could launch it sooner, because all that is needed is an issue and a dollar amount. Was the community informed about this? If not why wasn't the community informed earlier?

There is a company that wanted to pay out bounties and approached me for ideas how to go about it. I figured out how to do it with Flipcause and let them know. Now I'm waiting to hear what their budget is so we can pull the trigger. I was planning to make a blog post about it as soon as we got it set up. I only mention it here because it's on topic. If someone wants to apply a bounty to an issue sooner, then I can get it going sooner. Just let me know.


>
> The thing is that Basil is right when he says that there is something wrong with the system. You can go on about it being a voluntary effort all you want, but the fact of the matter is that if the Foundation had done its job properly, this would never have happened. Basil could have just picked a bounty. So don't deflect from the real issue the OP raised by talking about his approach / expectations etc. Your answer shows that the D Foundation does have a problem here. And then this gem:
>
> "I just went through my email history to confirm it. Sebastian contacted BountySource last year and they refunded all of the bounties that were in the system at that time to the respective donors. I would have expected the listed issues to have been deleted as well.
>
> However, the account is still open and a couple of bounties have been posted since then, so it obviously still works."
>
> Oh, man. Does anybody in the Foundation know what everybody else is doing? Is the D Foundation just a bureaucratic facade and in reality it's the amateurish "chaos as usual"?


Dude. Chill. Sebastian deactivated the BountySource stuff last year before we launched our OpenCollective page. I was CC'ed on the email chain. My memory isn't perfect and the fact that the bounties are sill listed there was both surprising and confusing. I had to go back through my inbox to verify that, yes, bountysource did send an email saying they had refunded the money to the donors.

>
> It'd be a pity if you lost Basil as a contributor, but this situation could have been avoided by better planning. If I were you, I'd try to make him change his mind, but instead you chose to be all official about it and give him a lecture about the law and voluntary efforts. This flies in the face of your usual mantra of D being a community effort and a "meritocracy". Your handling of this issue doesn't exactly encourage people to contribute, because they see what they get at the end of the day, a kick up the a**e. You know, a bit of common sense can get you a long way.

I'm not sure what you're accusing us of here. Not having the foresight to provide bounties for fixing issues? The BountySource page was there for years and *no one was fixing the issues*. So when we shut it down, it really didn't seem like a priority to do the same thing again.

No one "lectured" Basile. He was given valid reasons why the Foundation can't issue payments for past contributions. He was told we're planning to set up a new bounty system. That was almost three weeks ago. Now he's decided to criticize the Foundation about it publicly. I responded so that everyone understands why he couldn't be paid. I don't see how anyone gave him a "kick up the a**e".

Mike Parker wrote:

> Like it or not, the D Language Foundation is a legal entity that must abide by the rules. They can't just be sending money out to anyone who asks for it via email. Payments made have to either be for something that was made public beforehand or through contracts. Otherwise, there are going to be legal issues.
that's exactly why those "legal entities" are completely useless. so, there is D Foundation, and it cannot even use its money the ways it wants for D without asking approval of Big Brother. meh. if this doesn't define "useless", i don't know what will do.

On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 08:58:56 UTC, IGotD- wrote:

> I would go another direction. If the foundation has the money, why not hire a person or two to do development and fixes. Priority could be based on top contributes wishes. Just having a few people is more manageable when it comes to byrocracy.
>
> Hiring students is more difficult but cheaper as usually it must be on a project where they can obtain university credits.

We don't have the money to pay people a fair wage for all the work that needs doing. That's why we started the Human Resource fund[1][2]. We hope to use that to pay people to get some of the big ticket items completed. But to do that, we need the grow the pot quite a bit bigger. We're thankful to WekaIO for seeding it.

The upcoming SAOC 2019 [3] is another means to get stuff done. Symmetry is planning to donate more money for the event this year than last.

Hopefully, the new bounty system will prove more effective than the last.

[1] https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/NTUxOTc=
[2] https://dlang.org/blog/2019/06/23/dconf-t-shirts-and-the-human-resource-fund/
[3] https://dlang.org/blog/symmetry-autumn-of-code/

On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 09:23:04 UTC, ketmar wrote:
>
> that's exactly why those "legal entities" are completely useless. so, there is D Foundation, and it cannot even use its money the ways it wants for D without asking approval of Big Brother. meh. if this doesn't define "useless", i don't know what will do.

Hardly. No one has to ask permission. But money can't just be thrown around willy-nilly without raising the appearance of fraud.

If anyone has the time and is willing to work on contract for less-than-market pay, I'm sure something than be arranged. And if anyone wants to raise money for a specific issue or project, that can be arranged to as long as we announce it publicly before anyone undertakes it.

Mike Parker wrote:

> Hardly. No one has to ask permission. But money can't just be thrown around willy-nilly without raising the appearance of fraud.
that is called "asking a permission". if there is anybody to whom somebody else has to explain how and why his money spent, that is called "asking a permission to spend money".

On 7/24/2019 2:33 AM, ketmar wrote:
> that is called "asking a permission". if there is anybody to whom somebody else has to explain how and why his money spent, that is called "asking a permission to spend money".

The Foundation uses a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) for advice and for handling the accounting. We follow the CPA's advice to ensure we are following the law and doing things by the book.