[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Bug bounties

Tue Jul 30 16:53:09 EDT 2013

Hi Rogan,

Sorry to be late in getting you feedback on this, but I just wanted to 
send along a vote of support for the idea of offering bug bounties. I 
think it's a great idea!

I think it should be limited to true bugs and not be used for wishlist 
bugs. I know there are plenty of bugs to tackle that are more than a 
year old, but, when working in two-releases per year cycle, I'm thinking 
bugs become old much sooner than that. Maybe six month or even less? I 
generally have found that if a bug doesn't receive some kind of 
attention in the first three months (attention being questions, 
confirmation, lots of "me too"s etc.), it is likely to be one of those 
bugs that ends up gathering dust. I think it's important that we give 
bugs a chance to get community attention before offering a bounty. Six 
months seems like it would be more than sufficient.

> some would say it doesn't weigh importance of more recent bugs (and 
> that's true). 

I think it was me who said that. :) Overall, I would say targeting the 
older bugs is important. However, as with anything, I think there are 
exceptions. The specific bug I had in mind was 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1187993 which is related to an 
accessibility issue in the catalog when autosuggest is enabled. I see 
this bug as an exception because I believe accessibility is something 
the community should be supporting/striving for in any way we can. 
Perhaps there are/will be other unique cases out there where priority 
will take precedence.

In any case, if the community decides to move forward with this, I would 
be willing to volunteer to help work out the details. We might not come 
up with the perfect system, but, whatever happens, it should lead to 
some fixes for issues that have been frustrating people.

Kathy

Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier

On 7/18/2013 6:58 PM, Rogan Hamby wrote:
> I'll be honest it's partially unclear because this is bouncing it off 
> people thing at this point in time.  This probably frustrates some 
> people but I think these are things that as a community we should have 
> dialogues about.
>
> If I were asked to put forth my personal vision it would be something 
> like this:
>
> The community votes on bugs over X age (a year old?) using some kind 
> of mechanism and presumably ranks based on priority.  We then offer 
> bug bounties on a set rate to Y number of bugs based on how much we 
> have in that fund.  Let's say we have $1,000 and pay $100 per bug, 
> then we can offer it to the top ten bugs ranked by people's votes.
>
> There are flaws with that approach.  Some may say it does't give 
> weight to payments based on complexity of bug (and that's true) and 
> some would say it doesn't weigh importance of more recent bugs (and 
> that's true).  Fixing those things add issues of their own and  maybe 
> we want to take those issues on.  That's part of why I'm throwing it out.
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 6:51 PM, Tim Spindler <tjspindler at gmail.com 
> <mailto:tjspindler at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Rogan,
>
>     It is a little unclear what you are proposing.  Are you proposing
>     that bounties are given for fixing bugs?  Finding bugs? or Both?
>
>     Don't get me wrong, I think it has some real potential.  If we are
>     to put resources to it, I would advocate for rewarding those who
>     fix bugs because I'm sure many are pressured to add features but
>     not rewarded to fix bugs.
>
>     Tim
>
>
>     On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 5:58 PM, Rogan Hamby
>     <rogan.hamby at yclibrary.net <mailto:rogan.hamby at yclibrary.net>> wrote:
>
>         I wanted to bring up an idea that has been kicked around by
>         several folks (including myself).  At this point I don't have
>         a fleshed out implementation proposal in mind but wanted to
>         throw it out for consideration.  The context of conversation
>         so far had been targeting older bugs though perhaps we should
>         weight them by priority as well.  What, how much and where are
>         big questions attached to funds.  But, I don't want to put the
>         cart before the horse.  This is a practice used successfully
>         by some other open source projects and I think there's merit
>         in considering it.
>
>         Excuse my brevity, sent from my iPhone
>
>         -- 
>
>         Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA
>         Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services,
>         York County Library System
>
>         "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long
>         enough to suit me."
>         -- C.S. Lewis
>         <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis>
>
>
>
>
>     -- 
>     Tim Spindler
>     tjspindler at gmail.com <mailto:tjspindler at gmail.com>
>
>     *P**   Go Green - **Save a tree! Please don't print this e-mail
>     unless it's really necessary.*
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA
> Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services,
> York County Library System
>
> "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to 
> suit me."
> -- C.S. Lewis <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis>

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