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you can watch interviews from COSS (commercial open source) company founders, monetization is discussed in every video (see timestamps in video descriptions) https://www.youtube.com/@algora-io

I'm the host of the podcast :) hope this helps!

in this interview Ruben, the founder of Windmill, talks about his background, shares how the project got started (bootstrapped solo founder, went through YC last summer) and encourages more software engineers to start their own companies

interview highlights (4min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jsl0k7LX34

full interview (33min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPLVwFRjw7o

hey Vadim, i'm one of the founders at algora. fees are lower for non-commercial projects like mudlet https://docs.algora.io/bounties/payments#pricing we'd love to hear from you & better understand your needs. the problem we have identified is low trust + high friction in paid open source. the platform solves the problem & adds value in the following ways:

- discovery (new contributors)

- workflow (/bounty and /claim commands in issues & PRs, Github bot)

- payments (fast: autopay on merge | safe & compliant: Stripe)

- logistics (invoices, summaries, 1099s for US-based solvers)

- visibility (public history, leaderboards, org pages, activity feed)

- new use cases (/tip, /split, hiring, content bounties ++)

with Stripe we support fast & secure payments for organizations, compliance, reporting and payouts to contributors in 118 countries

what's wasting people's time here? is there a specific alternative you'd like to see or?

thank you for your wishes!

where did you see that? not sure what you're referring to

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!

hey kybernetikos, appreciate your input here!

wanted to clarify that contributors get 100% of the bounty

our fee is paid by the bounty creator (org) on top of the award

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!

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

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

we actually don't take a cut off the bounty. rather, our fee is paid by the bounty creator (org) on top of the award.

contributors get 100% of the bounty :)

thank you for your feedback here and sharing your story!

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

glad you found us too Diego! thank you very much for sharing bounties :)) always happy to get in touch and work something out, we wouldn't want our pricing to prevent you from enjoying the service! ioannis@algora.io welcome to Algora!

Thank you so much Alex, welcome to Algora!! love the chess diagram in the Terrastruct D2 README ;) first Golang open source bounty, let's go!

we're sad to hear you feel this way. not sure OpenCollective is an appropriate reference/comparison, but your point is duly noted.

in order to ensure we can continue providing value to the open source community, we need to make sure our own project is sustainable.

we are a bootstrapped startup without any VC funding and so we cannot cut corners when figuring out a sustainable business model. our current customers, who are all commercial open source companies, are happy with our pricing. and we're happy to accommodate non-commercial projects with discounts.

if companies try bounties, are satisfied and would like to utilize them at a bigger scale, we offer the option to pre-pay fees at a discount for a bounties budget of their choice.

there's definitely room for experimentation here. that being said, we do not think the Algora 20% fee (+3% Stripe fee) is unreasonable, especially when we offer discounts upon request & are happy to accommodate non-commercial projects.

perhaps "non-commercial" (no monetization / financial backing) is a more appropriate term here?

thank you for your input! the best way to ensure everyone has a great experience is to spec & scope bounty issues + provide acceptance criteria.

you can look at Remotion's 17 completed bounties, where specs & acceptance criteria are always included: https://github.com/remotion-dev/remotion/issues?q=label%3A%2...

that being said, we have only had a handful of projects using OSS bounties so far so we haven't seen everything under the sun. I acknowledge what you mean by blurry lines and how/when they might occur. but as I said before, when specs/scope/acceptance-criteria are in place, it's really hard to go wrong

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!

we will update our docs accordingly about the assignment flow, thank you for noting this AlexITC!

regarding your last point, yeah this use case is very tricky, indeed there is no guarantee that the upstream project will accept the change. in fact, that project would need to have the algora app installed to begin with. that being said, we understand there is a pain point here, so we will note this down and seek additional feedback. we won't hesitate to reach out if/once there is a development here :) thanks so much once again for all your feedback!

thank you so much Marc!! super excited to have IHP on Algora, we love how the project streamlines web development in Haskell and helps new developers get started, really appreciate working together!

fantastic feedback, thank you so much for all your input AlexITC!! regarding the potential issues you noted:

1. developers get assigned by the maintainers/core-team so there is no duplication of effort, there are never multiple developers working on the same bounty. if there's no progress from the assignee, maintainers / other developers would check in and the issue would get reassigned, there is self-regulation. that being said, standardizing this process through a 'locking mechanism' is an interesting idea, we will think it through - thanks!

2. the sliding-scale fee model you are suggesting is an interesting idea, we'll think it through! if companies try bounties, are satisfied and would like to commit to a bounties budget, at the moment we offer the option to pre-pay fees at a discount. there's definitely room for experimentation here, thanks for your note!

3. great point, at the moment you'd evaluate people by looking at their github profiles and whether they've contributed to your project before (or other projects in your ecosystem). there's definitely room to improve that 'selection' process for maintainers. once again great point!

that's a great question, thank you Drunken_Founder! haven't experienced something like this. because everything is public, we think that acts as a deterrence for people to do what you described. in addition, we closely keep track of bounty activity, and so if we see that a bounty has been completed (per the spec/acceptance criteria) but not rewarded for a while, we'd reach out to the maintainers to check in. if we ever determine any foul play, it's only fair and reasonable to un-feature that org from bounty discovery on Algora and suspend their use of our app.

I hope this answers your question, thank you so much for your feedback! happy to follow-up here

couldn't agree more, why limit bounties to just bugs/security rather than apply them to OSS product development broadly. thank you for your input!

thanks so much for your kind words! really appreciate your input here. will stay focused :)

thank you Baki! great to have you on our platform :)

it's our pleasure to support the cal.com community, thank you Peer!!

did you read the blog post though? :)

Kevin Hale at Wufoo (YC W06) did contract work for a month instead of interviews. Is that not "give candidates real work & pay them for their time"?

Thomas paid every engineer who did a 'Ride Along' (a day on the job with the Cloudthread team) regardless of his final hiring decision, and he did it with a bunch of folks.

Elliot paid every PR he received for his screening bounties on Algora regardless of his final hiring decision.

I think the title for the blog post checks out.

submarine charade, that's pretty funny lol.

The principle of engineers evaluating engineers based on real work remains the same, whether it's for an internship, flexwork, junior or senior roles, no?

I'd call it an early experiment and what we could afford at the time to evaluate candidates for a SWE summer internship. Maybe other companies will like this approach and offer challenges that pay much better, with different setups & time horizons. Ex a user turnt his challenge into a 3-month contract-to-hire arrangement that paid $15k to the person who did the work & got the job.

Ultimately it's about getting the right signals. Real work produces the best signals. The rest of the mechanics are a WIP :)

Really appreciate your input, thanks a lot!!

Received 5 PRs, awarded the top 3. You can actually see them https://app.algora.io/algora/challenge/pulls/5

We clarified it in our bounty issue that only the best-winning submissions would get the bounty. Other folks have chosen to award all PR submissions regardless of hiring outcome. The format is up to the company hiring.

You're making a great point! It's exactly about what we ask from people who don't get hired.

I think real-world coding, getting reviewed by the CTO / hiring manager and getting compensated beats standardized coding tests & imaginary take-home assignments any time of the day.

That's just how Thomas at Cloudthread.io run his process, he used real paid work for his final hiring decision. It's not the only way. We personally (Algora.io founders) jumped straight into paid work without prior interviews.

We shared a hiring bounty with a dozen applicants purely based on their resumes, never spoke with anyone on the phone, received 5 PRs, awarded & hired 3 of them.