Last week someone suggested to me the idea they would like to make a place where people could submit ideas to developers who would then create that idea. Very simple, and I almost said it would never work. Only I started thinking about it in terms of a stack overflow model to which I’ve become rather addicted and so I started going through how I would see something like that working.
- It would be a website
- All contributions to the website would be under some sort of general public licence.
- There would be a voting system which would indicate to developers which ideas are the most popular.
- There would need to be a community to build these projects but also to pick out ideas that already exist within the site and within the Internet as open source projects.
- As soon as the idea exists as an open source project, a link is created on the site from the idea to the project (in google code or similar)
- There would be a similar reputation system similar to stack overflow for both those who submit ideas and those that implement them on their contributions.
- There could be listings for open source projects in need of extra devs/testers/graphic designers
Let me know what you think.
Stephen Lacy
3 Comments
Interesting suggestion Stephen.
Who do you see as being the general source of ideas? Developers, non-devs, both? Some thoughts (without think too hard about this yet):
- I’m not sure there are that many ideas out there that something like stackexchange, which works better with large number of users, would work.
- Ideas that result in projects have a long lifecycle, which isn’t the same short lifecycle of a stack overflow question (where the fastest answer gets the upvotes).
- Devs will scratch their own itch. But, a stackoverflow like reputation system for FOSS contributions is interesting. Not sure how well it can executed though.
- ‘Idea hubs’ seem to be well catered for in mailing lists.
- Perhaps the model should be based on RentACoder / elance? (All have reputation systems in the end)
Sounds like a good idea, but as I think Damian alluded to, most developers will work on their own projects. Myself, I have my own open source project http://www.twipler.com which I would love some help with. (Nudge nudge). If that project ever gets finished, I’d love contribute a vector layer to Paint.NET.
Still the twitter – helping friends attitude is alive and well and Im sure there’s room on the interent for something like you suggest. I’d certainly check it out.
@Damian
- I see a lot of folks that are new to open source using this as a way to get involved, myself included.
- The StackExchange model would have to be altered, it’s only used as an example of a similar system
- The idea isn’t to manage the project but to provide a relation between idea and open source implementation
- Devs will always look to scratch their itch using an efficient solution, I believe this is one.
- Yes indeed they are catered for in many ways, this is simply another one which is tailored for effeciency
- I would prefer to make an open source system for open source projects.
I think you have misunderstood what I’m trying to achieve here, it’s not to provide a stackoverflow as is and say let’s use that for ideas. I’m saying that a system where ideas could be submitted, the popularity of ideas submitted could be established and a community capable of connecting the ideas with their implementation either through finding an existing project or creating one individually or as a group would prove popular. Do you not think so?