Topic: A proposal for custom programming services

[jcoleman]

I propose a combination of the Horde "Rewards" system and the Workshop.lindows.com system for contribs.org.

There are many of us who use the SME Servers in our business, schools, or other organizations that would like to have some custom rpms developed for our own specific requirements.  I believe that some of us would be willing to pay for code to be written that fills our needs.

I would like to suggest that we offer a series of rewards for custom development under the following criteria:

- All work done under this program is released to the community under the GPL (everyone wins)

- Person offering the reward specs the scope of work of the project

- No reward under $100 to separate the serious from the frivolous

- Payment is made when the work is completed and tested ok

An example would be:

Jeff Coleman wants a ClamAV installation and s-m panel developed for SME Server 6.0.1 - $100

We would need to build a framework similar to workshop.lindows.com in order to facilitate this work.  I believe that several people on devinfo have offered to build an equivalent system in php.

Comments?  Any interest?

-jeff

[Peter]

Hi All,
I think Geoff has the right idea! What is needed is an incentive for High quality SUPPORTED Add-ons in the same vain as Darrell and Stephen Nobel with the emphasis on Supporting testing and developing the product and if all are kept within the $90-100$ mark. One idea could be to have the RPMs hosted and we pay an annual subscription for down loads  may be 20% the contribs to help with funning this site and the rest going to the programmer.

Just my £2s worth: that’s inflation for you!

[bmann]

Have you checked out OpenSourceXperts? They pretty much have the infrastructure in place to do this kind of development.

Someone takes the initiative and writes up a proposal/requirements document. Whoever wants funds it, then various developers bid on it. A bid is accepted, and the collected money is paid out when it is completed.

There is a listing of e-smith solution providers. Please sign up and add yourself to the list if you do e-smith related development.

It would be great if contribs.org could support this further by helping organize the creation of requirements docs etc. ahead of time before submitting it into the OPSX system, plus perhaps display the RSS feed of e-smith solution providers to publicize it more.