From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2004-05-23T04:08:35+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby on Rails

David Heinemeier Hansson wrote:
> Oddball Idea: What I'd really like to see is a way for the community to 
> hire within itself for tasks like this. Or to get the documentation 
> done. Or similar things. I'd love to donate cash to a variety of 
> projects to improve their documentation. I don't know if there's enough 
> interest in Ruby to make it worthwhile for anyone to make something of 
> it. Or if introducing money to open source documentation is really the 
> way to go anyway.

I've thought about this. Odder ideas have materialized IMO.

I've also thought about hiring people for bug fixes and enhancements to
my own software. Not something that has been practical for me, but might
be soon. Not any real money in most cases, just: "Hey, a hundred bucks
if you'll add XYZ support to this code."

The site rentacoder.com is interesting in the sense that it's used by
both the software "buyer" and "seller" -- and the prices may be one or
two orders of magnitude lower than they "should" be.

I once posted a little Ruby problem there -- getting ActiveScriptRuby
and HomeSeer to play nicely, long a dream of mine -- and got no takers.

FWIW, at the time there were over 80 people there who claimed knowledge
of Ruby IIRC.

But I'm just rambling now.


Hal