vworker for Perl?
Would a site like vworker but perl-specific, where freelancers could pick up (small bits of) work from others in the community, have any legs?
This is an idea I've mulled over a few times, so now I'm wondering if it has any legs. There are many sites like vworker, where people can post up specs, and freelancers can bid on the work. You can often get work done quite cheaply, but there are obviously risks.
Would a dedicated service be useful to the Perl community? When posting tasks, you would state the maximum you can pay, which might be $0. Example of possible tasks:
- I'd like someone to fix RT#NNNN
- I'd like someone to implement feature X on the TODO list for module Foo::Bar
- I'd like a module for doing XYZ, which will go on CPAN.
- I'd like someone to create a module for X to get me started, I'll then finish it (and possibly released to CPAN).
- I'd like a framework of perl modules developing, and they won't be released to CPAN.
People could comment on items, for example to say "already done, see ACME::Wanker".
Obviously Perl developers could find vworker and the many other sites, but I wonder would a perl-specific service give it focus? I'm not really thinking about the business opportunity (where such a site would act as a broker and take either a fixed fee or a small percentage), but just a service that facilitates connections.
I'm not really looking to be such a hired gun. Over the last year I've had a number of occasions where I've thought "this would be a nice small package of work; pity there isn't really anywhere I can put it up for bids, and feel confident that a good number of Perl developers would see it".
Perl hacker since 1992.
As far as I understand, the sites you mention are about paid work. I doubt that this works well in Open Source programming - but maybe wrong. In addition I think the perl community is not large enough and there are already too many places. Can't we use an already existing service?
It may be that perl freelancers are getting enough action on the many places out there.
You mentioned the community not being large enough, so I wonder whether there's none of those sites (can) reach critical mass.
Whereas if there was a single place where all perl hired guns can subscribe to a simple RSS feed to hear about potential gigs, maybe that would encourage people to post stuff?
But just as likely, if not more, this would become another perl website home to iTumbleweed and not much else.
I'd like to see donation button on the modules. So i can supply beer to people i like. Imagine how much beer some guys can have
MetaCPAN already links to flattr, but the problem is that authors need to add it to their profile. For example Jess Robinson has.
It would be great if you could flattr any module author without the author having to sign up. An author could redirect their tips to charity, should they so desire.
I think this would be helpful. Flattr is nice, but I can use it to give some money to module authors. This is typically in appreciation of the module, but you would not use it to say: 'fix RT#1234 and get money'.
Also, many module authors are not per se interested in code for money.
Neils proposal is to give ANY perl hacker the opportunity to make some $$ by fixing issues. This does not specificly need to be the module author, or even *a* module author. And if the request was to add a feature to an existing module, of course, with a diff and unit tests attached, module authorst can put it in the next version, if they so desire.
I would like such a site, and find use for it, I think. I'm also not sure if someone should create a new site, or if we should just all use one *existing* site.
This might even be a bit like offering a bounty on stackoverflow etc. You'd essentially be offering money for someone to not only fix the bug, but possibly for going through the hassle of getting co-maint so they can release the fix to CPAN.