Bounty for a feature. Double dollars cold cash. Ver 2.1

[Zarf]

Hey all

I actually think 'bounties' for code are a good idea and actually have been fortunate enough to have been paid to work on an opensource project. Not to long ago I was paid to develop a plugin for wings that is now distributed with the program. This plugin I am told benefited a lot of people in general, and some very special individuals specifically.

If we lived in a perfect world that plugin would have been developed regardless of there being a reward, but we don't. Many times people need a more tangible incentive to do things, but this incentive dosn't have to be money! Perhaps it would be more in keeping with the spirit of the blender community to adopt a 'gift' model instead. Instead of money, people could offer books about 3d graphics programming in exchange for features. A good book is priceless in my opinion, and these sorts of books would contribute to the programmers ability to further blenders development. I for one would happily implement some features in exchange for two books about graph theory that I have been eyeing on amazon.com

For very very small features people could donate beer, a music CD or some other cheap item. The important thing is that people have realistic expecations about how much work is involved in implementing any given feature.The foundations involvment in this would be nice, since it would need some moderation. It may be enough to require that all the dialouge about bounties takes place in a public forum on this website so there is a public record of what transaction is to take place.

As an aside, if the feature being developed is going to be submitted for inclusion into the official releases it should go past someone who has authority in the foundation first. It is crucial that everyone has realistic expectations about what is feasible given the current state of blenders code. It is not nessecarilly 'wise' to implement some things right now, and some prudence could save some wasted work in the long run.

This is a good idea youngbatcat/moneyYay!/whateveryournickisthisweek. Keep working on it!

Cheers,
Zarf.

[Zarf]

If they were doing things for money, features probably would be implemented much worse, because you are not focusing on getting it to work perfect and well, you are focusing on money.

I'm not bringing this old post of yours up to take a pot shot at you Monkeyboi, just merely pointing out something that some people may not have considered. While it is true that money may cause people to implement things half-assed, don't you think thats a pessimistic way to look at the situation? I think that if pessimism were a completley valid world view, blender would still be closed source and we would all be using 2.23/2.25.

Many people take pride in the work they do at their jobs, not only because the quality of it is a reflection of them but also because it makes them feel good. I don't see why 'code for cash' should be any different, especially considering the fact that the blender community is full of individuals with strong character.

Cheers,
Zarf.

[Money_YaY!]

Umm, Doyou really want me to work on this again ? I had thought that it was basicly left as a dropped subject and idea. It was seen as a mess of views and complaints mixed with a few yes's . While I would like to see the idea work and get more features created. The sad fact is just that their are so few coders that are openly codeing for Blender. And the others are silent. Further, it just takes to much time for a new coder to get aquanited with Blenders code flow.

The rate of new coders that come to the projects tends to be around 1% every two months, and another 1% tend to leave or dissapear for several months.

From my quest of learning how a coder thinks and develops.. I have found that a coder 'will' just mostly only create what they want. And that is final. The only true way that you can get them to develop for money is to hire them into a company. Otherwise their is no control and they wonder about building by themselves as building by themselves gives them compleate control over the program at hand.

That is why their are so many broken projects and programs out on the net. Hardly anybody likes to work on a project together. Example: Gimp. It is the Linux's world power image editing tool. But it is barely in part two yet and it is years old and still lacking features to defeat Photoshop. So in fact a new group desided to break apart from it and build new features to help Film editing ergo Film Gimp, Cinema Paint. But that is so currently.

Another Major example is the massive array of Linux flavors. I will not even try to understand it. I do not use it, but it looks neat.

So basicly by default this idea will never fly. Just a better rally of . ... really i have no clue past this on how to get it to work. I want a feature but that is as far as it will go. Being Open Source does help Blender and the curious path of the life of a feature. I now look at other companies that I have to pay for their software and see great disgust at how they treat their loyal paying customers. They give us no spoken updates or bug fixes or features at all untill they feel like makeing a new version upgrade a year and a half later and then feel like chargeing for it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!! That makes me grumpy.

So it is just sit and wait. Talk alot but still sit and wait. As I can not code and have learned I will never will. Wish I could but it just takes to much time to make such a little feature. Besides I suck at math



^v^

[emack]

Hi YaY,

There were many opinions expressed, but that is to be expected. What I was waiting for was the php web board you mentioned in your earlier post. A central 'meeting ground' is key for this sort of thing.

I looked at the sourcesupport.org site and it looked like a reasonable pool based template, with rules on how submissions were voted on. Your original post listed most of the areas that a potential Blender request would need; I think that the next main step is to build the request board you outlined so people can start submitting.

I have a request that I would kick off the bounty with: FBX support, limited to import and export of textured polygon and subdivision surfaces, nulls, animation curves, cameras, and lights. I'd happily start the pool off at $250 for this, if the result was code good enough to make it into Tuhopuu and then bf-blender.

Thanks,

Eliot

[Zarf]

Hi YaY,

There were many opinions expressed, but that is to be expected. What I was waiting for was the php web board you mentioned in your earlier post. A central 'meeting ground' is key for this sort of thing.

I looked at the sourcesupport.org site and it looked like a reasonable pool based template, with rules on how submissions were voted on. Your original post listed most of the areas that a potential Blender request would need; I think that the next main step is to build the request board you outlined so people can start submitting.

I have a request that I would kick off the bounty with: FBX support, limited to import and export of textured polygon and subdivision surfaces, nulls, animation curves, cameras, and lights. I'd happily start the pool off at $250 for this, if the result was code good enough to make it into Tuhopuu and then bf-blender.

Thanks,

Eliot

As a motionbuilder license holder I have debated contacting kaydara about this and getting access to the fbx sdk; another blender developer did this before and they seemed open to the idea. It would require some intermediary format like blendXML due to licenscing restrictions of the fbx sdk, but all that could be hidden from the user with a python script. I could find a lot of use for this functionality myself! Lets talk about this. Private message me on elysiun and I will send you my email address.

Cheers,
Zarf

[Money_YaY!]

Well despite blender and Motionbuilder, Wings3D did just that, and now they have their very own plug-in to play with.

So yes that is a great idea. 250$ is no laughing matter. It is a hard idea to trust high amounts and collecting money first hand is not smart either. But all of this thinking is just my silly meta thoughts.

Ok ok, I will get back to work on the php stuff voluteers to would be nice.

[sebastian]

So you ask for help with php?
In that case I'm willing to help.