[Council] incenting e2e development

[Kevin Smith]

On 12 Mar 2007, at 16:29, Ian Paterson wrote:
> Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
>> Project leaders on the foundations list and elsewhere feel that  
>> "payment in kind" schemes are more successful than bounties. This  
>> might include things like equipment, but for our purposes a better  
>> example would be payment to attend a conference. So we might  
>> incent developers to work on end-to-end encryption by holding a  
>> special devcon. Unlike our talk-heavy "XMPP Summit", an e2e devcon  
>> would focus on coding sprints and interop testing. Projects would  
>> need to get to a certain point of viability in their e2e code  
>> before being invited to the devcon (this could even be based on  
>> self-reports, given the high level of trust in our community). One  
>> approach would be to hold two such events, or to hold an online  
>> sprint (e.g., in April or May) followed by an in-person devcon for  
>> those who complete the sprint.
>
> This seems like a good approach.
>
> I'm not sure how well the Summer of Code model works. Although  
> different people are often motivated in very different ways. So  
> perhaps we should be prepared to be flexible too?

I think it varies dramatically with the people involved - I certainly  
was motivated by SoC. I'd also be motivated by anything which could  
tangibly help Psi. I'd find it difficult to get time off work to  
attend such a devcon, so the potential reward there's quite limited  
(of course, as I think Remko's the person most likely to implement  
e2e, he may be a different story). I'm not typical either maybe.  
Perhaps the way forward would be to ask some of the high-profile  
projects what would be an incentive for them?

/K

-- 
Kevin Smith
Psi XMPP Client Project Leader (http://psi-im.org)