Re: Emacs Survey: Toolbars

[Jean Louis]

* Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> [2020-12-22 08:22]:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
> 
>   > We could also motivate by offering small payments for solutions to
>   > unresolved problems.
> 
> Yes, we could do that.  It could be a useful practice.
> And we would need to make a plan: a list of projects
> (not very many of them, I'd think) that are of a reasonable size
> and amounts to offer.
> 
> Do you think people could be motivated by amounts under hundreds
> of dollars?  I tend to doubt it.

I think yes. Not everybody is too busy and programmers live in various
economical zones that smaller amounts not affordable in US could be
quite affordable for one month of living in some other country.

For example a waitress in Uganda would get monthly US $55 for salary
which would be short as one would need to pay the room, and food at
least. Majority of people live for less than US $100 per month.

>   > Most people I know don't know what to do or what problems are out there.
> 
> Is this because we have not posted it in a clear enough way
> or because we have not made people aware of what we do post?

In my opinion both. It has been posted on GNU website what is needed
in terms of critical software where GNU need help, but website is huge
and when there is complex information it may not be quite clear. In
terms of Emacs I do not know if GNU posted it anywhere but in
etc/TODO.

It would be good to make a list of items where Emacs need some help
including if there are some paid initiatives.

The free OS DragonflyBSD offers "Code Bounties"
https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/developer/Code_Bounties/ where some
people may say which feature they would like to see in Emacs and some
people program for the feature, so they could say US $100 within 6
months for the feature X to be programmed. We could use that as
example and I have proposed it before few weeks. There is no guarantee
offered that feature would be included even if programmed, developers
decide it ultimately. 

We could then all "bid" on various features or program for bidders
while improving free software.

Jean