Cripes . . . this is turning out to be a right can of worms . . . and, obviously, there is an awful lot of reluctance
to sponsor/donate for bug fixes. Let me attempt to summarise so far:

1. people feel that the company responsible for producing some software should bear full
responsibility for fixing bugs.

Mind you, if that were the case I don't think there would be anyone developing any software anywhere at all.

2. People feel that "another: KickStarter 'thing' for bugfixes might end up as a blackhole swallowing their moolah with no guarantee of getting what they have stumped up their hard earned bucks for.

Well . . . Yes . . . I can see both those points of view as perfectly valid . . .

But the simple fact is, like it or not, LiveCode has got some long-standing bugs that at least some people feel are show-stoppers, and the people at LiveCode Central do not seem to be able to do much about them:

Why?

Well; here are a few possible reasons:

1. They have "bitten of more than they can chew" insofar that they have committed themselves to such a lot of work in terms of continuing development they just don't have the time or resources to get down to the bugs.

[This is why I suggested that LiveCode Central might like to consider taking a period "off" their continuing development to retrench and devote that period of time to attacking those bugs - this, of course,
presupposes they all have sufficient funds to put food in their fridges.]

2. They are undermanned.

3. They are underfunded.

4. They expected more "outside help" after they set up their Open Source version.

And #2, #3 and #4 might be sides of the same coin.

And if "We" don't do something about those bugs they may languish there forever.

Now an idea, which may be about as bonkers as most of my other ideas, is this:

Over on the bug-reporting system (or linked to it) have a system where a price is attached to "the head" of the most pernicious bugs. Individuals would be then welcome to donate funds to specific bugs, and once the price has been raised other individuals would be welcome to attempt to fix the bug, for which, if they can properly
demonstrate they have fixed it, they get the bounty.

There would, of necessity, need to be an overseer of this whole project.

On 7.10.19 23:02, Mark Wieder via use-livecode wrote:
On 10/7/19 7:57 AM, Mike Kerner via use-livecode wrote:
there isn't any reason why bug bounties have to all go to the mothership. you're (for lack of a better word) kickstarting a bug fix.  it's a bounty.
it should go to the person who delivers the fix, the bounty hunter.

Um, no. You'd be giving money to someone in the hopes that enough others will also do the same to reach the goal required to attempt to fix the bug. But you're charged whether or not the goal is reached. And whether or not the bug actually gets fixed. It's a bad fit, and the only way I'd ever put money into this kind of scheme is once enough other fools have done so and the goal has been met *and* I think there's a reasonable chance the bug might get fixed in a timely manner.

Look at the number of folks who complain about not having feature x from the LC Kickstarter campaign, where there was explicitly no guarantee of features actually appearing. Now extrapolate to a campaign where you end up paying into a scheme whether or not anything actually materializes.



_______________________________________________
use-livecode mailing list
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription 
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode

Reply via email to