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Comment by irf1 | Hacker News Reader

excellent question, thanks! correct, at the moment only Orgs create & pay bounties

crowdfunding bounties amongst users of OSS for features they'd like to see is a very interesting concept indeed and could help. however, it may also be a double-edged sword for the maintainers (ex users might feel 'entitled' with their requests now that money is involved, and this might happen on issues that are not part of the maintainers' roadmap).

we've been asked about this before, we don't yet understand all the dynamics here fully and refrained from developing, but it's a feature we can ship easily. we're holding back until a project explicitly agrees to have crowdfunded bounties in their repo and users who are ready to crowdfund it. happy to hear more feedback on this and continue the conversation!

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crowdfunding could be handled in a way that organizations decide what issues/features to accept, like they would now, but instead of putting up a bounty from their own funds they say: we don't have the funds to pay for this feature, but if we get enough donations then we can pay someone to build it.

so instead of the crownd deciding what they want to fund, the organization puts up something like a kickstarter for that feature and then asks the crowd to chip in.

or put differently: now you only support bounties that are already funded, and these would be bounties that are not yet funded, and like a kickstarter they are waiting for supporters.

interesting. in this scenario, who would end up implementing the feature & earning the bounty? a maintainer, a contributor or either?

as noted above, the dynamics of this feature can be tricky, but we're open to give it a try once an organization is onboard for such an experiment and users / contributors have already voiced their intention to crowdfund in this way

really appreciate your input, thanks em-bee! happy to discuss further ioannis@algora.io

I help run a large open source org.

I'd be interested in using a service like this, but only if it offered a good way to crowd-source the funding for bounties.

Ideally we'd be able to accept proposals for bounties, and then have a Kickstarter-style mechanism for the funding, which is held in escrow and then released to whoever completes the bounty.

Feel free to email me if you'd like to chat more :)

hey alice, thank you for your message. leafwing-studios looks really cool!

we'd definitely appreciate your thoughts on this one, will email you :)

in this scenario, who would end up implementing the feature & earning the bounty

the same people that work on regular bounties.

once a bounty is funded through crowd-donations, the organization and the developers just treat it like a regular bounty.

effectively, what it comes down to is implementing a crowdfunding system.

i see three scenarios:

the current bounty means: we have money, but we don't have developers for this feature, so we'll put up a bounty.

then you have the case where: we have developers, but we don't have money, so we need crowdfunding.

and finally both together: we have neither developers nor funding for this feature, but if we can get this crowdfunded we can put up a bounty.

actually, crowdfunding would or could be independent from the bounty process because it is just a method to get funding. so it's even a question whether this is in scope of algora or should be something separate. i can see the advantage of having both in the same app because a crowdfunded feature could graduate into a bounty automatically: this bounty goes live as soon as the funding goal is reached,

but on the other hand this would also add complexity and maybe even confusion, because now you are dealing with three types of users: the organisation, the contributing developers and the financial supporters.

amazing receiving feedback like this, thank you for putting all this thought!

non-commercial open source orgs usually lack the budget for bounties, and so they'd miss out on this utility. we shipped a sponsorships feature in february (1min demo: https://youtu.be/cl-1tQaN-40) to eventually ameliorate this, but have kept the feature in alpha. it could be tied into the crowdbounties as you described.

we also think there can be an advantage to having both in the same app.

just taking it one step at a time.

would love to chat about this (cal.com/ioannisflo) & keep you updated (ioannis@algora.io) if you'd like, once again really appreciate your feedback on this!

feel free to email me, my address is in my profile.

regarding your sponsorship demo, i would expect the amount that i enter to be the total that i'll pay, because it is determined by the money that i have. the fees should not be added but subtracted from that amount. they also should be shown on the same page as the split to have a complete overview of where the money goes, not hidden as a surprise added on checkout. (hiding fees is actually illegal in the EU. i am not sure if this qualifies, but i'd be careful)

btw: consider a monthly (or other interval) repeat option

your feedback is duly noted, thanks em-bee! sponsorships are an experimental feature, not currently available, but if there's interest we will update it per your feedback before releasing, thanks again!

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