I've placed on behalf of Facebook a few more bounties on D-related issues. There's a bit of budget (a few hundred only) earmarked for GDC- and LDC-specific stuff. I didn't hear anything from Iain Buclaw (what's happening?) and am discussing with Kai Nacke the best angle of attack regarding LDC issues.

https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/383571-d-programming-language

Now here's where it gets interesting. Facebook would be glad to increase the bounty budget if that helps, i.e. if bounties do help bugs get fixed and things moving forward.

Although we've seen no change in the general activity, there was little improvement in activity on the bugs selected for bounties, although quite a few of them aren't difficult to fix.

Here's where you (singular and plural) can help. By working on these bugs not only you make a buck, but also push the language state of the art forward and entice more involvement from Facebook. (For ethical reasons, Walter and I decided to not participate.)

So... have at it! Let's bust these bugs and show the world we're serious.


Andrei

On 12 January 2014 10:19, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org
> wrote:

> I've placed on behalf of Facebook a few more bounties on D-related issues. There's a bit of budget (a few hundred only) earmarked for GDC- and LDC-specific stuff. I didn't hear anything from Iain Buclaw (what's happening?) and am discussing with Kai Nacke the best angle of attack regarding LDC issues.
>
> https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/383571-d-programming-language
>
> Now here's where it gets interesting. Facebook would be glad to increase the bounty budget if that helps, i.e. if bounties do help bugs get fixed and things moving forward.
>
> Although we've seen no change in the general activity, there was little improvement in activity on the bugs selected for bounties, although quite a few of them aren't difficult to fix.
>
> Here's where you (singular and plural) can help. By working on these bugs not only you make a buck, but also push the language state of the art forward and entice more involvement from Facebook. (For ethical reasons, Walter and I decided to not participate.)
>
> So... have at it! Let's bust these bugs and show the world we're serious.


Perhaps people need some sort of urgency motivator, like higher paying
(initially), but time limited bounties ;)
Ie, every day the bounty is reduced by 5% or something...
If it's not there tomorrow, then you'd better get it done today!

Humans are proven to work most effectively when threatened with a strong sense of urgency (it's why the gamedev industry always seems to be in a perpetual state of 'crunching' :/)...

On Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 00:34:38 UTC, Manu wrote:
> Perhaps people need some sort of urgency motivator, like higher paying
> (initially), but time limited bounties ;)
> Ie, every day the bounty is reduced by 5% or something...
> If it's not there tomorrow, then you'd better get it done today!
>
> Humans are proven to work most effectively when threatened with a strong
> sense of urgency (it's why the gamedev industry always seems to be in a
> perpetual state of 'crunching' :/)...

If you don't fix it soon then someone else will... that should give a sense of urgency :-)

(not sure I agree about crunch/urgency making people more effective... but that's a different thread)

On 12 January 2014 10:49, Peter Alexander <peter.alexander.au@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 00:34:38 UTC, Manu wrote:
>
>> Perhaps people need some sort of urgency motivator, like higher paying
>> (initially), but time limited bounties ;)
>> Ie, every day the bounty is reduced by 5% or something...
>> If it's not there tomorrow, then you'd better get it done today!
>>
>> Humans are proven to work most effectively when threatened with a strong sense of urgency (it's why the gamedev industry always seems to be in a perpetual state of 'crunching' :/)...
>>
>
> If you don't fix it soon then someone else will... that should give a sense of urgency :-)
>
> (not sure I agree about crunch/urgency making people more effective... but
> that's a different thread)
>

If it didn't work on some level, it would be adopted as standard practise
by at least 1 whole industry.
It certainly does work in the short term, but applied long term, it has
diminishing, and eventually severe negative returns. People aren't much use
when they're burned out and hate their life.

Anyway, just a question, how are the values for the bounties calculated?

The values assigned make the suggestion that they should all be roughly 1-3 hour tasks (presuming most people here get paid in that ball park, I think typical for skilled comp sci).

Psychology when money is involved is very interesting. People here usually
contribute because they want to, and no other reason, and on things that
interest them. But if they're to consider being motivated to work on
something they're not interested in by financial interest alone, why would
people take a pay cut to do so?
Granted that a middle ground probably exists, but I doubt it's relevant
here; this community represents some of the highest idealism in open-source
software.

So I wonder,
a) should the bounty applied be less than an average hourly rate; ie, it
shouldn't undermine the open-source incentive, but just give a nudge of
incentive to some select issues, or
b) should it be more than an average hourly rate (more like contract
rates), to offer people fair compensation for the work they're doing.
Surely, if it pays more than your day job, then this obviously comes first.

I can imagine quite easily why a bounty that's too small wouldn't seem to
create any additional pressure on getting bugs fixed; if I make more in an
hour at work, then the financial motivation is basically non-existent, and
the idealistic nature of open-source might even add negative pressure.
I know for me personally, the moment there's a financial figure on the
table, my mind immediately starts considering it in terms of time. If it's
not a recreational activity, it's work, and I don't work for free.

If getting these bugs fixed is a business interest for facebook, then I
wonder if the bounties should be set closer to a reasonable contractor pay
rate?
That's what you'd be paying in the event you hired a contractor to get the
work done, and it makes financial sense to any (employed) members of the
community who might take the job.
If you do look at it that way, I think it would be useful to attach an
estimated number of hours to each task. Infact, I think that would be
useful regardless...

Anyway, just some thoughts.

On Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 00:49:14 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote:
> (not sure I agree about crunch/urgency making people more effective... but that's a different thread)

Studies has been made on the subject. Long story short, it works on the short term, but is counter productive on the long term.

On Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 02:04:38 UTC, Manu wrote:
> ...
>
> Anyway, just some thoughts.

I agree with most of this. I'm spending some of my free time working on some code that helps D development in general but has no bounty on it.

To work on a bug that has a bounty I'd have to:
1) Get up to speed on something that didn't immediately interest me
2) NOT do what did interest me

In the SF bay area, $50 is not a lot of money. It's maybe enough to pay the bill for dinner + tip for two people, or enough to fill a small car's gasoline tank.

These bounties just seem to be bonuses for people who were going to work on those bugs anyways.

On 1/11/14 7:16 PM, Brian Schott wrote:
> On Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 02:04:38 UTC, Manu wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> Anyway, just some thoughts.
>
> I agree with most of this. I'm spending some of my free time working on
> some code that helps D development in general but has no bounty on it.

Yah, it's a weird valley to climb out from. The famous original experiment on cognitive dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance) had people paid more rate a task more negatively.

My hope is to convince that the message Facebook is conveying here is much stronger than the actual sums involved; it's an initiation of cooperation and involvement with a community, and it would be awesome to respond in kind.

Walter and I chose the bugs and sums involved. The sums were assigned so as to not create animosity; if I'd assigned $1000 on some bug and someone else has worked or had just done a more difficult and important bug, there would be tension. The current sums are nice perks for people who'd be interested in pushing D forward anyway. And I'm telling you: doing great on bountied bugs is one pretty darn good way to push it forward.

> To work on a bug that has a bounty I'd have to:
> 1) Get up to speed on something that didn't immediately interest me
> 2) NOT do what did interest me
>
> In the SF bay area, $50 is not a lot of money. It's maybe enough to pay
> the bill for dinner + tip for two people, or enough to fill a small
> car's gasoline tank.

Whoa, wait a minute. You live around here? Let's meet! Will send you email.

> These bounties just seem to be bonuses for people who were going to work
> on those bugs anyways.

YES. But that's just the beginning!


Andrei

On 12 January 2014 14:16, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org
> wrote:

> On 1/11/14 7:16 PM, Brian Schott wrote:
>
>> On Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 02:04:38 UTC, Manu wrote:
>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> Anyway, just some thoughts.
>>>
>>
>> I agree with most of this. I'm spending some of my free time working on some code that helps D development in general but has no bounty on it.
>>
>
> Yah, it's a weird valley to climb out from. The famous original experiment on cognitive dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance) had people paid more rate a task more negatively.
>
> My hope is to convince that the message Facebook is conveying here is much stronger than the actual sums involved; it's an initiation of cooperation and involvement with a community, and it would be awesome to respond in kind.
>
> Walter and I chose the bugs and sums involved. The sums were assigned so as to not create animosity;


I can certainly appreciate that, and it is a delicate issue, but it really
depends how it's framed.
For instance, if facebook has a vested interest in D (or any technology),
and they need some work done, it's common business practise to hire a
contractor and get it done.
Companies do this all the time for many reasons. If facebook were to hire a
contractor lets say, to do some work on any open-source project, it would
follow that the work, while being done in facebook's interest, is then
contributed back to the project.
This happens in OSS all the time, and it doesn't usually create animosity.
I would imagine (although I have no evidence to draw from) that most
communities would appreciate the paid contributions to the code regardless
of who they paid to do it. What really pisses the community off is when a
businesses hires a contractor to do some work and then DOESN'T commit their
changes back to the mainline.
In a sense, what you're doing here is not just hiring some contractor, but
you're giving everyone in the community an equal opportunity to take the
job.

The criteria required to keep a respectable summed bounty impersonal, is that the task must be in facebook's own business interest. I don't think people in the D community can reasonably take issue past that, and the fact that everyone has an equal opportunity to accept the contract is in some ways a nice bonus.

Perhaps you should do a poll, and see what the average sentiment on this
matter is?
I think most people understand that when a technology becomes backed by a
large influential company, it turns out being good for the whole community.

Google and Apple both made their fortunes leveraging OSS technology... I wonder how many people in the OSS communities that they leverage are pissed off about it? Are there stories of this sort? I haven't heard any.

if I'd assigned $1000 on some bug and someone else has worked or had just
> done a more difficult and important bug, there would be tension. The current sums are nice perks for people who'd be interested in pushing D forward anyway. And I'm telling you: doing great on bountied bugs is one pretty darn good way to push it forward.


Sure, and it is a nice perk, but your comment seemed to be that it hasn't motivated the action you were hoping for from a business interest point of view?

 To work on a bug that has a bounty I'd have to:
>> 1) Get up to speed on something that didn't immediately interest me
>> 2) NOT do what did interest me
>>
>> In the SF bay area, $50 is not a lot of money. It's maybe enough to pay the bill for dinner + tip for two people, or enough to fill a small car's gasoline tank.
>>
>
> Whoa, wait a minute. You live around here? Let's meet! Will send you email.
>
>
>  These bounties just seem to be bonuses for people who were going to work
>> on those bugs anyways.
>>
>
> YES. But that's just the beginning!
>
>
> Andrei
>
>

+1 on (potentially) Facebook hiring somebody to work on the toolchain in some form. Would set a good precedence and showing just how committed Facebook is.
I don't think anyone would disagree with this.

My feeling is with this we could really go far.

On Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 06:10:41 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:
> +1 on (potentially) Facebook hiring somebody to work on the toolchain in some form. Would set a good precedence and showing just how committed Facebook is.
> I don't think anyone would disagree with this.
>
> My feeling is with this we could really go far.

I'm new and this is how I see it as a bit of an outsider...

Facebook have put up bounties and allowed Andrei (whom I assume is one of their more high profile devs) to work on during work hours, at their expense. I think it is now the turn of the D community to step up to the plate.

I'd love to have time to contribute to D directly but I don't. So I'd like to say that I really appreciate anything, no matter how small, that is contributed to D and especially all the hard work of the D core devs.

Cheers,
Ed