Announcement: Putting together a vTiger Bounty Team

Comments

• 19 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
• BrianLaughlin

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  from email thread...
  
  hello again,
  
  i am interested in helping with the bounty system for vtiger. i do not have extensive experience with these kind of projets, but i will contribute if there are anything i can do. i have some minor html/php experience and a basic understanding of programming, but not enough to really do development. i have some experience setting up systems and administering them (lamp, sguar/vtiger, mambo, egroupware etc). i live in norway, but i guess location isnt too important for online projects.
  
  [cut]
  
  i took a quick look at that guru.com site, and it looks like that is a great place to start. i didnt log in to see the inner workings, but ill look into it again soon.
  
  anyways, i'm in if you need help.
  
  
  sincerely, tharald nustad
• BrianLaughlin

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  taken from email thread...
  
  tharald,
  
  thanks for the email and i appreciate you coming forward. i noticed that bounty came up in the maillist discussion. a website that was mentioned was lanchpad <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://launchpad.net/bounties">https://launchpad.net/bounties</a><!-- m -->. a comment made was that it wasn't open source and that for this to take off it would need to be customized for only vtiger.
  
  my thoughts are the following:
  1. set up a system for bounties. reward developers for work done and help direct features and bug fixes that the community is willing to support with payment. a little from several people can add up quickly.
  
  2. expand our pool of development talent. that's why i like guru.com. creating a larger pool of talent is critical for this to work. i have personal experience with guru and it will be easy to find. it also provides a short term solution to managing the project, having a form of safe payment as well as access to a lot of talent.
  
  3. get the community involved and start to have people ante up for features and fixes they would like to see. this would fall into two categories.
  a) promoting bounties and building a buzz. we need to create momentum and create real value for developers and the community.
  b) create a way to track requested features/fixes along with pledges. codeweaver has this setup for their wine product. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.codeweavers.com/site/compatibility/browse/name?letter=all">http://www.codeweavers.com/site/compati ... letter=all</a><!-- m -->.
  
  in the spirit of getting the community involved i would like your permission to post a modified version our email to show activity and hopefully build more responses.
  
  thanks again,
  
  brian laughlin
• BrianLaughlin

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  taken from email thread...
  
  i havent been looking at the mailing list. will take a look. hadn't heard about launchpad either. looks good, but a bit "slow" (on action).
  i appreciate the wish for open-source system, but i think at the moment it is just important to get going. we could possibly transition to something better in the future, but for now a system like guru or launchpad is a start. i do not know them enough to comment on what is better, but it seems guru.com has a chance at getting more developers.
  
  as for your comment about creating a buzz, i think it is interesting to look at the marketing efforts of vtiger. i dont know how actively this is pursued, but bounties is something that could generate some buzz. the effect of the bounty system should be proportional to the people using the system, so "getting the word out" should be important to getting the system working. just something to keep in the back of our heads.
  
  another thought that i have is that we have to be aware of the issue of the core team versus independents. i think it is important that the core team does not have their priorities shifted because of bounties (leaving some holes in the sw to claim bounties and so on). it should be possible for the core team to claim the bounties too, but maybe in a different way (having a big bounty for core development, where people can give input on priorities??).
  
  you can use my emails as you wish publicly. i was a bit unsure whether to email you privately or respond to the thread to generate buzz, but chose the first because it seemed likethats what you asked for:)
  
  ok, those were just some thoughts about the bounty system. ill look into the two systems mentioned a bit more over the weekend. i think it is now important to get the developers and users in general in on the idea.
  
  sincerely, tharald nustad
• JamieinNH

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  brian,
  
  i am willing to help out however i can.
  
  as you get things together, please let me know what you need help with and i will pitch in.
  
  jamie
• BrianLaughlin

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  jamie,
  
  thank you! we need all the help we can get. i'll keep you posted.
  
  regards,
  
  brian
• MikeG

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  brian,
  
  i'm a newbie, planning to go live with 4.2.4 on 1st april. pleased to help in any way i can.
  
  regards
  
  mikeg
• trevortwining

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  is there a list of things to get done? i'm willing to help if i can but not quite sure where to start.
• RickEntertel

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  i would love to help as well, my company is currently testing vtiger internally, and hope to begin implementing/managing it for others within the next few months. keep me posted.
  
  thanks,
  rick
• BrianLaughlin

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  thank you everyone for stepping up. i'm attaching a simple flow chart.
  
  it's a simple flow chart of what the first phase of our bounty roll out may look like. please give your comments and feedback.
  
  it would appear that the next step after we agree on an overall flow would be to design a simple system for tracking users and bounties. in fact, this can be our proof of concept and we could even make this the 1st bounty.
  
  the system can be as simple as compiling a list in the forum, having a dedicated forum section or even a simple web application. i can provide the server if we should chose the latter.
  
  all feedback is greatly appreciated.
  
  brian laughlin
• mikefedyk

  February 2006 Vote Up0Vote Down

  i vote for having a forum section.
  
  then once one or more developers step up, have an agreed third party[1] collect the money from the people and have a set policy to follow before the money and code are released.
  
  1. one of the vtiger team or one of the community maintainers not entering into the bounty.