It would be cool to have a way to track what features users would find most useful for future development, like a way to vote on GitHub issues. It would be especially nice if it could be linked somehow to our OpenCollective account (or run directly through OC) to add a crowdfunding aspect to it. Developers could post a “bounty” for a given feature, based on what they estimate it would cost to develop. Then users could pledge whatever dollar amount they were willing to sponsor it for, based on how useful it would be to them and what they were able to pledge. Once the bounty was reached, the devs could go ahead and build it, and get paid for it.
I’ve been talking about this in chat for a while, but was prompted to posit the idea here after I saw that Webpack has something kinda similar on their website, linked to both GitHub and OpenCollective:
I know in the past we’ve also discussed the possibility of contributing something directly to OpenCollective itself, since it’s also an open source project that takes community contributions. Rewriting the farmOS website in Gatsby would also make the Webpack approach perfectly feasible as well. All food for thought.
I’m curious what others, particularly non-developers, have to say about the idea.
As a non-developer, these strike me as terrific ideas.
I work for Paicines Ranch, which has been working with you, Jamie, and Mike to develop features through targeted work plans and contracts. So our situation is rather unusual. That said, I do my best to consider how these features will (or will not) have broader relevance to the greater FarmOS community. I give strong preference to the items that seem more universally desired. Having a polling capacity and ability to select projects accordingly would be a neat way to ground truth this and potentially go in on a feature with others.
(admittedly, an opportunity to mutually fund a feature has come up before and it was relatively low on our own priority list… so we’d still consider supporting features on a case-by-case basis.)
Hello.
I’m a freelance agricultural technician in northern of Italy.
My consultations are both with superior structures (cooperatives, supply chains), and directly to farmers.
When I work directly with farmers, I work with EU CAP funding, and I apply a transparent price, in which I insert a solidarity share: of the financing that I will take from the CAP I give 5% to a project related to the consultancy performed.
For example, for consultancy on keyline design, I am giving a 5% to an NGO that provides training on the subject in Italy and abroad.
It would be great to activate a virtuous circle whereby I professionally use the features of FarmOS and I give a part of my income to advance the same features.
I think a benefit of having greater granularity, when it comes to allocating funds from sources such as OpenCollective, is that it would be easier for consultants to pin such donations to the feature or feature sets that benefit their activities the most. That’s not a use case I considered, but definitely a plus in favor of implementing such a system. Thanks, @bonushenricus!
this!