What changes to D would you like to pay for?

[Joakim]

On Friday, 7 September 2018 at 05:31:22 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote:
> On Wednesday, 5 September 2018 at 07:00:49 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> The D foundation is planning to add a way for us to pay for 
>> changes we'd like to see in D and its ecosystem, rather than 
>> having to code everything we need ourselves or find and hire a 
>> D dev to do it:
>>
>> "[W]e’re going to add a page to the web site where we can 
>> define targets, allow donations through Open Collective or 
>> PayPal, and track donation progress. Each target will allow us 
>> to lay out exactly what the donations are being used for, so 
>> potential donors can see in advance where their money is 
>> going. We’ll be using the State of D Survey as a guide to 
>> begin with, but we’ll always be open to suggestions, and we’ll 
>> adapt to what works over what doesn’t as we go along."
>> https://dlang.org/blog/2018/07/13/funding-code-d/
>>
>> I'm opening this thread to figure out what the community would 
>> like to pay for specifically, so we know what to focus on 
>> initially, whether as part of that funding initiative or 
>> elsewhere. I am not doing this in any official capacity, just 
>> a community member who would like to hear what people want.
>>
>> Please answer these two questions if you're using or would 
>> like to use D, I have supplied my own answers as an example:
>>
>> 1. What D initiatives would you like to fund and how much 
>> money would you stake on each? (Nobody is going to hold you to 
>> your numbers, but please be realistic.)
>
> I'd be willing to pay at least $100 each for these two:
>
> https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19159
> https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18788
>
> Quite honestly, though, I probably wouldn't do it myself for 
> $100.  These bounties really need to be $500 or more.
>
> If D is to be funded by individuals, there needs to be some way 
> to organize individuals around common interest and raise funds 
> for those tasks.

Yes, that's the point of the funding targets mentioned in the 
quoted blog post and this thread, to see who's interested in 
collectively pooling towards certain common goals. Obviously no 
one's person contribution would be enough to get any non-trivial 
goal funded.

Given the anemic response to this thread and the Opencollective 
so far, I suspect we wouldn't raise much though. OTOH, maybe the 
people who would pay don't read the forum.

> For example, the D Language Foundation has a "Corporate Bronze" 
> offer on its OpenCollective page that includes 3 priority bug 
> fixes per month for $12,000.  If we could get 24 like-minded 
> people, willing to contribute $500 each, and vote on priority 
> bugs, that could potentially get things moving in the right 
> direction.  That would be 1 1/2 bugs per contributor.  I don't 
> think that's bad.  I'd be willing to join such a collective if 
> I got at least 1 priority bug fix out of it.

Yes, these types of paid bugfix schemes are what I describe above 
too.

> Even better, IMO, it'd be nice if the "Individual Sponsor" or 
> "Organizational Sponsor" offers on the OpenCollective page 
> included at least 1 priority bug fix.

That would make sense for the latter offer.

Btw, if anyone is under any illusion that I'm offering to 
implement any of this for the money, I have zero interest in 
doing this work. I _am_ interested in paying others to do it. I 
may tinker with enabling the GC on the DMD frontend some day, but 
that wouldn't be for any bounties, just OSS.