[GH-ISSUE #910] Encourage Bountysource? #714

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opened 2026-02-26 01:31:26 +03:00 by kerem · 1 comment

kerem commented

2026-02-26 01:31:26 +03:00

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Originally created by @jcrben on GitHub (Jul 14, 2018).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/910

I'm thinking we could encourage Bountysource - posted a $10 bounty for https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/647

Sustainability of open-source software is a long-term, known problem - the incentives are skewed as the people who put in the work aren't usually rewarded.

I'm noticing that people are struggling with bugs, but these are often difficult to reproduce and the reporters aren't usually up for debugging. If they got together and pooled some money, maybe these bugs could be fixed? Hard to say because they could be device-specific, but perhaps we could prominently encourage people to post Bountysource bounties for their bugs.

This project isn't ideal in some respects for Bountysource because it's got this reproducibility issue - without the specific device, it might be hard to fix the problem.

Originally created by @jcrben on GitHub (Jul 14, 2018). Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/910 I'm thinking we could encourage Bountysource - posted a $10 bounty for https://github.com/jberkel/sms-backup-plus/issues/647 Sustainability of open-source software is a long-term, known problem - the incentives are skewed as the people who put in the work aren't usually rewarded. I'm noticing that people are struggling with bugs, but these are often difficult to reproduce and the reporters aren't usually up for debugging. If they got together and pooled some money, maybe these bugs could be fixed? Hard to say because they could be device-specific, but perhaps we could prominently encourage people to post Bountysource bounties for their bugs. This project isn't ideal in some respects for Bountysource because it's got this reproducibility issue - without the specific device, it might be hard to fix the problem.

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2026-02-26 01:31:26 +03:00

kerem commented

2026-02-26 01:31:26 +03:00

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@kurahaupo commented on GitHub (Dec 27, 2019):

Sounds like a good idea in principle.
An alternative would simply be to pledge to buy a donation/upgrade through Google Play.

The reproducibility is further hampered by:

Most users don't actually know which subsystem is at fault, and it can remain unclear whether two reports are or are not caused by the same underlying issue.
What fixes one user's bug might cause a bug for other users.

What happens when a paid bugfix has to be rolled back because it negatively affects more users than it fixes?

@kurahaupo commented on GitHub (Dec 27, 2019): Sounds like a good idea in principle. An alternative would simply be to pledge to buy a donation/upgrade through Google Play. The reproducibility is further hampered by: 1. Most users don't actually know which subsystem is at fault, and it can remain unclear whether two reports are or are not caused by the same underlying issue. 2. What fixes one user's bug might cause a bug for other users. What happens when a paid bugfix has to be rolled back because it negatively affects more users than it fixes?