This is a bold, very bold post.

I think there's a problem in the economic system of the D lang foundation.
And because of this problem I'll stop contributing to the compiler and the standard library.

Basically what has opened my eyes is this situation: like often I have money problems. Since six months I have fixed something like 50 dmd bugs. So a natural reflex was to contact the D foundation, to ask for a little "bounty".

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".
Ok so I propose a serious project... I even reserve **three weeks** for it... No replies nothing.

So you've lost me. If someone in needs cant even get 50 bucks from the foundation, in retribution for 50 bug fixes, there's a serious problem.

Goodbye.

Basile B.

On Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 21:22:38 UTC, Basile B. wrote:
> This is a bold, very bold post.
>
> I think there's a problem in the economic system of the D lang foundation.
> And because of this problem I'll stop contributing to the compiler and the standard library.
>
> Basically what has opened my eyes is this situation: like often I have money problems. Since six months I have fixed something like 50 dmd bugs. So a natural reflex was to contact the D foundation, to ask for a little "bounty".
>
> 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".
> Ok so I propose a serious project... I even reserve **three weeks** for it... No replies nothing.
>
> So you've lost me. If someone in needs cant even get 50 bucks from the foundation, in retribution for 50 bug fixes, there's a serious problem.
>
> Goodbye.
>
> Basile B.

Well, honestly I agree with the foundation on this one.

It's great that you've done all that work BUT you can't expect something in return for voluntary job, regardless of how much work you did.

If you didn't want to do it for free you should probably have consulted with them beforehand to have a paid agreement of some sort.

Yeah it sucks not to be paid for a lot of work you did BUT D is built on voluntary work which means you shouldn't expect anything at all in return for your work.

On Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 21:22:38 UTC, Basile B. wrote:
> This is a bold, very bold post.
>
> I think there's a problem in the economic system of the D lang foundation.
> And because of this problem I'll stop contributing to the compiler and the standard library.
>
> Basically what has opened my eyes is this situation: like often I have money problems. Since six months I have fixed something like 50 dmd bugs. So a natural reflex was to contact the D foundation, to ask for a little "bounty".
>
> 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".
> Ok so I propose a serious project... I even reserve **three weeks** for it... No replies nothing.
>
> So you've lost me. If someone in needs cant even get 50 bucks from the foundation, in retribution for 50 bug fixes, there's a serious problem.
>
> Goodbye.
>
> Basile B.

Sorry, but I don't see why you expect compensation for your work. There's nothing to suggest that you would be compensated for it. If money is recurring problem for you, why are you spending so much of your time contributing to D, for free?

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.

On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:25 PM Basile B. via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>
> This is a bold, very bold post.
>
> I think there's a problem in the economic system of the D lang
> foundation.
> And because of this problem I'll stop contributing to the
> compiler and the standard library.
>
> Basically what has opened my eyes is this situation: like often I have money problems. Since six months I have fixed something like 50 dmd bugs. So a natural reflex was to contact the D foundation, to ask for a little "bounty".
>
> 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".
> Ok so I propose a serious project... I even reserve **three
> weeks** for it... No replies nothing.
>
> So you've lost me. If someone in needs cant even get 50 bucks from the foundation, in retribution for 50 bug fixes, there's a serious problem.
>
> Goodbye.
>
> Basile B.

I gave you some money, but the thing is, D contribution is not a paid
effort. Contributors understand this, and we all have day-jobs.
You would need to specifically negotiate a paid contract of employment
if you want to earn a salary contributing to the D core (and there
would need to be such positions available), or propose some projects
or developments that *users* would pay to have.

There are lots of possible developments in the D ecosystem that I would pay to have accelerated, if you want to fund yourself this way, you need to be more strategic. Perhaps choose some focus areas and ask for bounties; some people might support you that way if they have some money spare to advance their interests.

I would offer a $50 bounty for every non-trivial issue I've logged in
bugzilla, maybe more for some if that helped motivate people to
address them.
For most contributors though, it seems money doesn't affect their
motivation; it's mostly time-limited... and appetite for masochism.

On Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 21:22:38 UTC, Basile B. wrote:
> ...

Like others already said, unfortunately I think you're blaming the wrong people/entity.

This is an open-source project and people contribute on their own will like you did.

Anyway I think we should implement bug bounty program where people (Not only D Foundation) could open incentives for solving bugs, and this could help some people like in your case.

I'm willing to contribute financially with bug bounty program, I just need to figure how or in what platform we can do this.

Matheus.

On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 05:02:14 UTC, matheus wrote:
> On Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 21:22:38 UTC, Basile B. wrote:
>> ...
>
> Like others already said, unfortunately I think you're blaming the wrong people/entity.
>
> This is an open-source project and people contribute on their own will like you did.
>
> Anyway I think we should implement bug bounty program where people (Not only D Foundation) could open incentives for solving bugs, and this could help some people like in your case.
>
> I'm willing to contribute financially with bug bounty program, I just need to figure how or in what platform we can do this.
>
> Matheus.

It already exist: in the wiki's first page, "contributing" section, bounty -> https://www.bountysource.com/teams/d/issues

I'm not sure how active it is but it is present.

On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 06:52:10 UTC, Cym13 wrote:


>
> It already exist: in the wiki's first page, "contributing" section, bounty -> https://www.bountysource.com/teams/d/issues
>
> I'm not sure how active it is but it is present.

As far as I know, we aren't using that anymore and I wouldn't rely on it.

On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 05:02:14 UTC, matheus wrote:
>
>
> Anyway I think we should implement bug bounty program where people (Not only D Foundation) could open incentives for solving bugs, and this could help some people like in your case.
>
> I'm willing to contribute financially with bug bounty program, I just need to figure how or in what platform we can do this.
>


Please read what I wrote above. *Anyone* will be able to contribute via the system I'll be setting up through Flipcause. Each issue will have its own campaign. Anyone who wants to throw money at any specific issue will be able to do so as a donation through that issue's campaign. And there will be a "catch-all" campaign for sending money to multiple issues with one transaction. Then the Foundation will be responsible for making the payments to the right people when an issue is resolved.

On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 07:44:08 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 06:52:10 UTC, Cym13 wrote:
>
>
>>
>> It already exist: in the wiki's first page, "contributing" section, bounty -> https://www.bountysource.com/teams/d/issues
>>
>> I'm not sure how active it is but it is present.
>
> As far as I know, we aren't using that anymore and I wouldn't rely on it.

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.