Hi Robert,
of course you were right when donating to him directly, as it was not tied to the specific bounty!
And from that perspective... I fear that my attempt to sponsor "Paul" by sponsoring the "GNASH" bounty might have missed the intention. But that is neglectable, as at the end of the day Paul gets some money in an "official" way (so that other people are aware of it) and that's all I wanted. ;-)
In general, I think we must try to clearly separate bounties from feedback or, to put it that way - don't use bounties as a way of feedback. ...and by saying "we must try" I actually mean myself. ;-)
At some point, it is getting difficult: The bounty system is a very tentative way of giving feedback in a "public" way so that everyone can see that someone has done something for a developer. I think we also need "public" ways of providing *feedback* - e.g. when I say "thank you, Paul" it should be visible to everyone, maybe this encourages other users to do the same.
Perhaps many folks out there might think "A developer won't care if I say only <thanks>..." and that is something that can be changed by letting everyone else see your thankfulness... even (and especially) without money.
One of such ways of public feedback/thanks is an award - like the os/2 world awards. We should have such things (or better additional, different things) on a more frequent basis...?
Oops. Getting off-topic too much, I think I should make this an article...
Greetings
Thomas
of course you were right when donating to him directly, as it was not tied to the specific bounty!
And from that perspective... I fear that my attempt to sponsor "Paul" by sponsoring the "GNASH" bounty might have missed the intention. But that is neglectable, as at the end of the day Paul gets some money in an "official" way (so that other people are aware of it) and that's all I wanted. ;-)
In general, I think we must try to clearly separate bounties from feedback or, to put it that way - don't use bounties as a way of feedback. ...and by saying "we must try" I actually mean myself. ;-)
At some point, it is getting difficult: The bounty system is a very tentative way of giving feedback in a "public" way so that everyone can see that someone has done something for a developer. I think we also need "public" ways of providing *feedback* - e.g. when I say "thank you, Paul" it should be visible to everyone, maybe this encourages other users to do the same.
Perhaps many folks out there might think "A developer won't care if I say only <thanks>..." and that is something that can be changed by letting everyone else see your thankfulness... even (and especially) without money.
One of such ways of public feedback/thanks is an award - like the os/2 world awards. We should have such things (or better additional, different things) on a more frequent basis...?
Oops. Getting off-topic too much, I think I should make this an article...
Greetings
Thomas