I would like the board to have a vote as to whether we should hire full-time developers. If the board doesn't feel this is the right course of action, I would like to know why.
Ron did have a proposal that for those who seek security, they can be paid a salary and either they'd be entirely unincluded from bounties or their salary amount would be deducted before the award (which makes more sense)
At the same time, these are my reservations:
1. It is favoritism. Every should have the same chance at the same prizes, disregard any previous history or expertise.
2. This favoritism places later contestants at a greater disadvantage than they already are. Aside from having to play catch up already, they now have to compete against those that don't have to work their day jobs through Mastercoin salaries, for a smaller portion of the pot that has already had slices allocated away for such salaries.
3. What do you think is more effective? Paying someone(s) a salary so they may forget their other financial obligations and focus full time, or placing a large enough bounty with good enough directions so that anyone can begin developing as they see fit, work together as they see fit, and quitting their jobs as they see fit? I lean towards the latter.
LETS GET THESE GREAT DEVELOPERS FULL TIME ON MASTERCOIN
If that's split between the current four Devs they would have made $78,125 USD in Dev MSC EACH MONTH the last three months = $234,375 USD and they would have quit their jobs by now. It really is that simple.
This represents an 'unearned' windfall. This is not good. I say pay the devs really well. Too well. But don't throw the money away - we need it to motivate more devs in the future.
Ideally, I would like to see:
1. Open contestation for bounties, to put contestants on a level field. Regarding how to design them, honestly I would like to see JR more visible on this front as the first contest was designed and handled very well imho by him (his decision of course, because Mastercoin is his baby and of course he'll do what he has to to make Mastercoin succeed. We all will). Though bounties should be more of a volunteer's job ie the board's, we may see fit to contract bounty creation and management out to the community. Taariq Lewis, our top candidate for heading development of the smart property milestone, I could see as a top competitor for bounty creation if he can design the best incentives and directions to guide such development (right now there is some discussion on how to best utilize Taariq's talents, still ongoing with the board. Personally I think objective-based bounties are best suited for this). Obviously anyone can contribute proposals, collude, and/or critique each other. If the proposed bounty, open to the community, is approved, a bounty would be paid out to the creator(s). A further or "second half" bounty could be made for bounty designers or anyone to make sure the bounty is managed and executed well. Bounties and bounties for bounties would be developed during the time the developers are working on the as of current milestone, so that upon completion, we already have the next bounties ready to go.
2. Use nice fixed BTC/MSC prizes for the
major milestones, the market can decide what that is worth monetarily, and the contestants can decide whether or not it is worth it to them as well.
a. The fixed BTC/MSC prizes will tend to increase in value. High value will increase profitability for those that spend their skills and efforts on development, and the incentive for efficient work will increase.
b. I think this is where we'll see self-organizing coalitions as it almost always more competitive to team up than it is to be a lone wolf going against teams. Encourage strategization by increasing the stakes at hand.
3. More open discussion and exchange of ideas! Keep this going gentlemen, it is refreshing to have each other to bounce ideas off of.