[chef-dev] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Incentivizing open source, possible bounty program?

[Brad Knowles < >]

On Feb 7, 2012, at 6:56 PM, Bryan McLellan wrote:

> We've done something like this in the past. We do try to take care of
> our key contributors and MVPs. I think it would be high cost to
> develop and sustain a fair award based system that gets you into a
> conference.

IMO, better would be a committee/consensus system.  Try to look at the 
respective bodies of work as a whole, which is what I imagine you probably 
already do something similar for your key contributors and MVPs on the 
smaller scale of a single release.

I guess my primary model here would be the PSF Community Service Awards, but 
I guess I'm rather partial to that method. [0]

Regretfully, in my case, I'm not able to take advantage of a discounted entry 
fee to a Python-related conference, because although I've been involved with 
Python and helping to run the python.org mail system for many years, I am not 
actually a Python developer.  However, that would not be an issue for me 
related to Chef.

> Noah pointed out the
> Python Software Foundation grants program [1], which appears to be a
> more flexible way to approach this sort of thing. This also puts more
> expectation on the contributor to put the energy into defining the
> body of work, which I like because it requires less up-front and
> on-going work on my part to maintain something that may not get used.

If a certain amount of money can be set aside for grants of this nature, I 
think that could be a great idea.  However, this does bring up the issue of 
where the grants would be coming from and how they would be funded.  Their 
grant method doesn't seem to be related to anything like "code bounties", and 
the money is coming from the PSF.  My understanding is that the GSoC program 
is also funded by a foundation, and not directly from the company itself.

If the money comes from a foundation, is for the benefit of the community as 
a whole, and any code produced is suitably covered under a CLA/CCLA that 
would be acceptable to the respective employers, then I would expect that 
many employers wouldn't have a problem with someone from their company doing 
work of this kind -- on their own time, etc....  I suspect that there are a 
number of more open-minded companies that would be happy to known as the 
employer of someone who has their name in lights as the recipient of 
such-and-such grant or award from the Chef Community Foundation, or whatever 
that might end up being called.


[0]  http://www.python.org/community/awards/psf-awards/

-- 
Brad Knowles 
<
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SAGE Level IV, Chef Level 0.0.1