Re: MasterCoin: New Protocol Layer Starting From “The Exodus Address”
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With all due respect Bounty's work very well, but it comes as an afterthought to full time employment. Bounties foster competition and it is good for getting to see what potential candidates for a project are made of. How how about in a situation where we already know the skill and ability of said developers? Bounties in these cases become counter-intuitive because the ability of the skilled developer to produce quality work is not based on actual skill, but on actual time he can afford to give after his first priority which is the other job that puts food on the table. We seen several instances when tachikoma had to sleep and go to work.
The long term hiring works way way better for developers who we already know have the desired skill, competence and drive from a track record. It would mean that Mastercoin is priority for developers and they already love working on mastercoin why not enable them to give their all to mastercoin? We have several of these guys from the previous bounties and I think it best to do everything to "poach" them while we can. Don't forget there are competitors and this is also a race to the top of who can achieve a network effect for success. Not only do we want to achieve a network effect, but increase the switching costs by having such rich and intuitive system that makes it hard for users of mastercoin to find any other comparable platform. And what we need right now is to get the devs to focus full time on developing essential mastercoin features than to worry about two things at once. : "Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
what does everybody else think?
With all due respect Bounty's work very well, but it comes as an afterthought to full time employment. Bounties foster competition and it is good for getting to see what potential candidates for a project are made of. How how about in a situation where we already know the skill and ability of said developers? Bounties in these cases become counter-intuitive because the ability of the skilled developer to produce quality work is not based on actual skill, but on actual time he can afford to give after his first priority which is the other job that puts food on the table. We seen several instances when tachikoma had to sleep and go to work.
The long term hiring works way way better for developers who we already know have the desired skill, competence and drive from a track record. It would mean that Mastercoin is priority for developers and they already love working on mastercoin why not enable them to give their all to mastercoin? We have several of these guys from the previous bounties and I think it best to do everything to "poach" them while we can. Don't forget there are competitors and this is also a race to the top of who can achieve a network effect for success. Not only do we want to achieve a network effect, but increase the switching costs by having such rich and intuitive system that makes it hard for users of mastercoin to find any other comparable platform. And what we need right now is to get the devs to focus full time on developing essential mastercoin features than to worry about two things at once. : "Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
what does everybody else think?
I think thats a well made, and considered post.
A fixed and agreed monthly/weekly wage for a given contracted dev, should not really be a problem for an organization serious about developing the benefits and claims, made for Mastercoin. Managing it is a challenge, granted, but a necessary step-up in operations to achieve current goals and expectations, i would have thought.
Fully understand the leap of faith felt, jumping out of the ability to provide for commitments consistently, into something not so known and reliable, but thats what its going to take.
Thank you Ola, this is a great post.
When you get down to it, most people are risk adverse. This includes 90% of the developers I've employed over the last 8 years. That's why they get a job with me, instead of starting their own business.
As others have mentioned, if you are employing developers, instead of entrepreneurs (which usually look for a different kind of payout with higher risk, but potentially higher reward), then a steady paycheck in fiat or possibly even BTC will do wonders. Bounty money is so nebulous and unreliable in comparison for someone that has kids and a mortgage, as zathras and Tachikoma have brought up earlier. It's great it got the project this far, but you guys may want to consider a slightly different approach moving forward as this thing gains steam.
As far as the dev team, here's my two cents:
* Start with two full time devs, then look at moving to 4 as things settle in and it makes sense (i.e. scale up once you have the basic structure and workflow in place)
* One of the devs is given the team lead role
* Pay devs in fiat/BTC, as 1099 contractors if possible (check the IRS checklist on this)
* Utilize Scrum development practices
* Sign up for sprint.ly and use that to manage your development process / product backlog...integrates directly into github, awesome interface & product (Pivotal tracker is another one -- Trello is a good tool, but not well suited for this at all...)
* Ron/JR possibly share the Scrum "product owner" role, and put items on the backlog for the devs to work off of
* Backlog and burndown chart are public, and the community can vote/influence the items on the backlog
* Bounties, etc still exist for non-core-team devs, who can run independently with their own efforts
If you do it this way, and your devs are of high enough skill, you don't need a dedicated PM role. I find that role not very useful with small, talented dev teams (your team lead will be half dev, half PM/interface anyhow).
I would still *strongly* consider at least one of these devs working on the "mastercoind" concept I outlined earlier (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.msg3666117#msg3666117) for the reasons I listed earlier (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.msg3667049#msg3667049). It just makes sense and will move this project along SO much quicker, especially in regards to enabling non-core devs to build products and tools around mastercoin....I mean, just think of what bitcoin would be like without bitcoind???
And...this probably goes without saying, but don't get too glib that Mastercoin will maintain this current front-runner position. That's the classic downfall of every front-runner...complacency. A healthy dose of paranoia is always good
