BOUNTY THREAD - $$$ for code

[orenwolf]

Ok.

I am an opensource advocate. I believe in the development model, in the community, and in the spirit that opensource provides.

I have also been actively involved in the Mozilla project for more thant two years (triage work, not actual code, but for a project as big as mozilla, equally important).

Mozilla differs from ShowEQ in that most of the coders are paid to code for Mozilla. Obviously not everyone who has contributed code works for Netscape, but many do.

From time to time, a problem comes up which is a high priority for the Mozilla *community*, but not for Netscape, and they will not fund work on the feature. This leaves someone from the community (or a dev, on his own time) to do the work instead. Normally, this works fine.

But what happens when the job is big, and complicated, and the motivation simply isn't there in the community to do the work?

The answer, simply, to find a motivation.

Here, we have a difficult problem. Fix the networking code for ShowEQ. It sounds somewhat complicated, but I don't think terribly so. I believe instead that it is far more tedius than complex (as in, I don't believe the fundamental underpinnings have changed, but getting it to work correctly is an "unfun" venture).

So, when the job is tedius, and the motivation isn't there, what do we do, as users?

We Pay.

Your not buying a product, you're buying someone's time to work ON a product. And at the same time providing motivation to do so.

And I, for one, am prepared to help remotivate the development team.

To that end, I offer $50 USD, via Paypal, to the person/team who successfully works out the packet structure and documents the process (by this, I merely mean the structs, and a general message explaining what steps are required at a high level to take an EQ packet and massage it to be SEQ-able).

I invite anyone with the same mindset as me to do the same. Just a few of the lurkers donating $10/20 will result in a reasonable winfall to get this program working again.

I'm willing to hold the funds "in escrow" until the fix is in hand, but alternately, if I am not sufficently trusted by the community, I'd like to nominate Ratt to hold the funds in the SEQ Paypal account, if he so wishes (and is willing).

Lastly, what's my motivation?

Simple. i've played EQ since beta. I've had a lot of fun with the game, but the neverending spawn hunt and getting lost holds no appeal for me. without showeq I spend far more time finding things to kill than actually killing, and this seriously hampers my enjoyment of EQ. With that in mind, and considering I was willing to shell out for a substandard map interface in Ykesha, the least I can do is pay someone for their time in producing an invaluable tool.

[Alfred]

Good luck with this idea. ;)

I posted something similar with the intention of openning eyes to the fact that these people are Not being paid and that I would gladly do so. Even tho it was light hearted, if someone would have taken it serious I think I would have helped out.

Nobody would take it other than as a joke :).

If you do get feedback that is constructive, I'd be willing to contribute.

GL

[orenwolf]

..Even my personal donation is more than $0, which is what the devs would get otherwise, so even without support from the rest of the community I hope I'll make a difference.

But seriously.. all of you ask yourselves - what is a dev's time worth to you? What is a working showeq worth to you?

If it's $0, fine. If it's as little as $5, offer it up to get it working again. We may even get non-dev lurkers to try their hand at the code if the pot is high enough, who normally would not. :)

And, By the way, in case anyone wants to see an example of this process working in OSS, have a look here:

Donations for Mozilla Development. (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124026)

[Amadeus]

*IF* one of the trusted devs on this forum (ie, Ratt, Fee, Mvern, etc..) posted that they had a working version of ShowEQ and *IF* they were offering to continue working on the project if they were paid, then I'm all for it.

I think it might be neat to charge a smaller amount for each CVS update. For example, $10 per CVS update sounds fair to me /shrug. Means if your version continues to work past a few patches, you could elect not to upgrade new features, etc... however, if you want a working version of SEQ, cough up the $10.

Time is money. I'm more than willing to pay for a good product at a reasonable rate. I'm nervous about paying an 'up front' license for free updates for life (ie, $100 for SEQ for life, for example) because you never know when someone will tire of the game or else SEQ will make it VERY hard to crack. But, I think paying per CVS would make more money for the devs and avoid consumers paying for something that might fizzle at any point.

[orenwolf]

you're missing the point. This isn't about "buying" seq.

This is about paying someone for thier time spent working on a SEQ fix. It's about motivation. I seriously doubt that whomever accepted this task and produced a working seq would subsequently turn and say "next patch, you pay me again". Reputation matters.

If you're not comfortable with the idea of paying someone to perform work on a "free" product, I understand. The concept is somewhat alien in western culture.

But I mist reiterate again, this isn't about paying for Showeq. This is about compensating someone for taking the time to do the work we cannot, or will not, ourselves.

Think of it as a "tip jar", payable to the person who does the work.

[mvern]

/shrug, you can probably expect a cvs commit along with the next eqgame.exe patch. Has nothing to do with payment, just no point in spending the time to fix current live code when test has different code. I work on seq because I use it myself, and I play on test, so you can do the math. :P

[Amadeus]

/rofl ...who would have thought that this thread, of all threads, would get a response from Mvern?


Mvern, you're the man :) I knew that you had the ability if you were still interested since you've broken some hard shit before.
It's nice to know for certain that you don't play on live servers at all...that should help in the future with getting people to be patient ...they just have to wait until live matches test ;)

Thanks for your work. I hope SEQ can be stable for a while...I have some ideas for enhancing the program as is, but I don't have the network background to "Fix" it when it breaks :)

[Jillian]

Originally posted by mvern
/shrug, you can probably expect a cvs commit along with the next eqgame.exe patch.

/CHEER!!! I would gladly pay to a current developer pool if we had a system setup.

[e@tme]

/shrug, you can probably expect a cvs commit along with the next eqgame.exe patch.

Well, the patch that had been slated for thursday has now been moved to April 1:

check here (http://eqlive.station.sony.com/support/scheduled_downtime.jsp) and here (http://eq.crgaming.com/) for info.

[CybMax]

I like the idea.. But dont know how it is possible to work through

Ie. Will a dev come forth and say : I will do the work! and when he finishes, he gets the cast..

Or.. Will the first dev to "I put up the fix!!" be rewarded the cash?

What if people are willing to donate as you $50 here, and $20 there.. it makes quite a good deal of cash.. but does this mean that eg. 2 months from now, some doode fixes it, he will get the cash? Or, do the "contributors" of this set "Fix it THIS month.. and ill happily pay my $20 of the cake.."

Or..? All cash goes to a common account with a admin that chooses the rules.. and such..

Too many questions.. But the idea is good.. Toss the Devs a carrot, and they might just wanna pick up again :)

[xirtam]

True developers will work regardless of whether or not there's a monetary incentive. At jobs I've done in the past regarding computer work, I could hardly understand why I was being paid. The work was fun.

That said, monetary incentive is always nice, I'm not knocking it.

CybMax, your points are well received. But in an open development environment like this, it would be easy to just toss the money to Ratt and have him delegate it as he sees fit. You can tell by the cvs changes who's done what.

[Alfred]

Toss money to Ratt?! He probably would spend it on cheap Hookers. ;)

[xirtam]

Toss money to Ratt?! He probably would spend it on cheap Hookers.

There's a thought. Suppose there's more than one way to pay for development services.

[Hendrix_Morton]

I think this is a great idea...

Im one of those lurkers who has been around forever (HQ site and all) and couldnt program my self out of a paper bag (ORACLE DBA here), but would be more than happy to offer some cash to show the devs how much they are appreciated...

Not paying for SEQ, giving some well deserved credit (credits?) to those that can and do the work that makes me happy...

[orenwolf]

Well, I'm all for having Ratt set up a "Tip Jar" that people can contribute to and Ratt can delegate the funds from on his own schedule. I have no interest in spearheading the effort, I'm just the first to "put my money where my mouth is". :)

Personally, I'll pay whomever Ratt acknowledges in the CVS commit as having done the work, be it one or many.

Mvern, if you submit the patch that gets us working, the $50 is yours. ;)

Now, we just need Ratt's support on this.

[SeqTester]

I have a question, lets say you DO send him $50 after there is a fix. What happens if SOE patches the next day and it breaks?

I am sure there will be lots of "I paid you $50, refix it again!!!" posts. I am not saying YOU will, but I am sure there would be someone saying it.

my 2cp

[orenwolf]

That's quite possible. But at the same time I don't think a Dev would risk the ire of the community by saying "pay me $50 again or no fix". That goes against the spirit we've seen in the ShowEQ dev team thus far.

Remember, the payment is for motivation more than anything else. Once someone writes something, they tend to want to imporive it, and care about the code itself. I have faith that a dev would continue to make "reasonable" changes without becoming unmotivated, just like they always have.

Now, if SOE severely changed everything a day later, then yes, I could see said dev throwing up their arms and becoming unmotivated, just like you or I would if you built something and someone took away the foundation, but I think that's very unlikey, since it would likely generate the ire of the playerbase again, as the last major change did.

It's far more likely the subsequent fixes would be "incremental", and such fixes tend to come fairly quickly on their own. It's these "post-expansion" changes that are usually difficult.

[The Duck]

True developers will work regardless of whether or not there's a monetary incentive. At jobs I've done in the past regarding computer work, I could hardly understand why I was being paid. The work was fun.

That's fair, but it's also fair to say that developers occasionally need extra cash for one reason or another. I myself have been programming for the last 10 years, professionally for about 6 of that.

I frequently find myself taking small projects that I can do in a week or so in my spare time at $80 an hour to pound out some utility for someone or another in my off time. I don't *need* another job, I do it because I like doing it, get incentive to try out new technologies, and at the end of it all, I gave up playing EQ at night for about a grand. Which...I usually blow on some new game or piece of hardware.

I have done code for free, yes, but it's not often. I program stuff all the time that I'm just messing around with, but it rarely goes anywhere.

If I was comfortable with the Linux environment, I'd probablly be on the SEQ dev team, but I'm not. Perhaps I might if it stayed broke long enough to become more than a minor nuisaince, but I'm still not to that point.

If the SEQ project was in C++/ASM in a windows development environment, I'm sure I'd be working on it when it broke. As such, the thought of learning a new development environment (debugging in any compiler you haven't used for years just sucks, period) isn't something I'm willing to do at this time.

That being said, I think it's fair to say that providing the people who already have the environments set up incentive to fix the code even when it isn't one of their personal priorities is a good idea. At worst, it provides someone like me the opportunity to code in an environment I am already familiar with, and turn that money over to those working in one I am not. At best, people like me finally get off our lazy asses and learn Linux, which just hasn't been a big priority for me over the years. (Frankly, a piece of software no one is getting paid to fix being broke for a month just doesn't really concern me. Once we approach 3 months, then I'll start to be annoyed. )

*quack*

[devnul]

Has it occurred to anyone that the very best way to keep SEQ not working is to put a tweak to the network layer on test?

As long as SEQ is not fixed they may take a very long time to patch. In fact the NW code may never get moved UNLESS SEQ is working.

I think we may have trained them to use the best and probably ONLY successful strategy they can employ to keep SEQ from working. Attack us at our weak spot.. our laziness.

dn

[mvern]

If it was just a "tweak", it wouldnt be a big deal. I kinda doubt they'd maintain a seperate codebase just to be sneaky with the evil seq users.

[Lyroschen]

I don't think Sony is really all that stressed out about SEQ. It would be a silly waste of resources to try soooo hard to interfere with something that's not causing them harm, or costing them money. Cursory attention is enough for such programs. Folks stupid enough to discuss their use of the program in game, or running up to a hiding GM, and starting a conversation, etc. The real threats are things such as registering expansions for free, crashing servers, getting GM status abilities, and interfering with the game enjoyment of other players.

Gaining a few advantages in the game may be an annoyance, and if they can put an end to it with minimal effort then they surely will. But, it's not money-smart to expend exceptional amounts of resources on it. The added security seemed to correspond with the release of LoY, which happened to be their first fully-online expansion release, and may have been subject to hacks allowing folks to flag their accounts for free. Even if it wasn't that, specifically, that's the type of motivation that would cause SOE to throw out such a hastily and crappily organized struct change. I seriously doubt SEQ was a major concern. But, that's just my opinion.

From the sound of it, waiting for SOE to stabilize things a bit before going nuts on fixing SEQ is a good plan. It's easy to get burned out on something like this, and having to start over repeatedly would be too much.

I appreciate your response, Mvern. Having an idea of what to expect goes great lengths to curbing withdrawl anxiety. \\=^ ) I wish I could e-mail you a beer for all your efforts.

[CybMax]

I am in on the idea..

Ratt: Make a collective box with who donated, how much is in the pot, and keep it updated.. 1st one to solve the problem gets all the cash..

If Ratt makes this "official" with updated status of how much is in the pot at all times, one of the devs might just think "hmm.. i got nuttin special to do this weekend.. and why not make some cash" or whatever..

Think it is worth a try.. at least should put an end to the "i fixed the god damned code last time, and got $0 for it" :)

[Jel321]

If you look at the front page for SEQ you will see:


Want to support ShowEQ and the EFF... and recieve a nifty icon and tag to show you contributed? Click here

I dont think Ratt would turn down free money but this is the method he has chosen.

Besides, look at the insane uproar on these boards when SEQ is down and people are paying nothing for it.

Can you imagine how disgusting it would be if someone sent Ratt (or any of the devs) 50 bucks and then SEQ was down like this? Scary.

[orenwolf]

Again, this isn't to pay for ShowEQ.

This is to pay for the time a Dev uses to fix it.

If it breaks subsequently, as I said, the devs have been quick to fix it - with the exception of breakage following an expansion, as we have here.

I for one wouldn't blame a dev at *all* if sony pulled a major code change on them - that's the risk I take - but, as I've said in earlier responses, it's far more likely they would only be minor changes - changes that the devs correct reasonably often.

My primary goal is to get us out of the "Ykesha Rut", which I believe requires a certain abount of mundane work to do.. after the major changes are in, minor changes, I'm sure, will appear as they always have - within hours or days of the patch. :)

[BlueAdept]

Originally posted by orenwolf
If it breaks subsequently, as I said, the devs have been quick to fix it - with the exception of breakage following an expansion, as we have here.

Actually there have been several periods where EQ hasnt worked for extended periods of time. I think the longest it was broken was when Kunark came out. The encryption was changed from 16bit to 32 bit. There were many people saying that it would never be cracked and that it was the end of SEQ....it wasnt.


I for one wouldn't blame a dev at *all* if sony pulled a major code change on them - that's the risk I take - but, as I've said in earlier responses, it's far more likely they would only be minor changes - changes that the devs correct reasonably often.

With the cart system in EQ now, SEQ isnt obsolete, but it may narrow the user base quite a bit. I still prefer to see the map on my other monitor, but I only use the decoder (when it was working) when there is something Im specifically looking for (like to see if an epic mob is up). It only took sony 3 1/2 years to realize that people really want a map to see where they are.

You must not have been using SEQ long enough to remember when they would do weekly and sometimes daily encryption changes just to break SEQ. I would put anything past Sony, but now with the cart system, I dont know how high a priority it will be.


My primary goal is to get us out of the "Ykesha Rut", which I believe requires a certain abount of mundane work to do.. after the major changes are in, minor changes, I'm sure, will appear as they always have - within hours or days of the patch. :)

Ratt has already provided a means to make a donation. The EFF is a good organization and one that needs to be supported.

Making a "pool" isnt a good idea because then it creates an aura of competitiveness where devs might not share code with each other because it might help another dev get further ahead of another.

It sounds like Mvern already has it working on test and is just waiting for it to go live. I dont have a problem with that. In fact I think it is great that a dev is using the test server so that in the future, SEQ will be ahead of the game.

After 4 years, I am really supprised that EQ (let along SEQ) is still alive and kicking. I am really happy that there are people who still care enough to keep SEQ alive. I still feel that Sony should be supporting this project because without it, I believe a lot of us would have quit EQ long ago.

[Fantastik]

Originally posted by The Duck


If the SEQ project was in C++/ASM in a windows development environment, I'm sure I'd be working on it when it broke. As such, the thought of learning a new development environment (debugging in any compiler you haven't used for years just sucks, period) isn't something I'm willing to do at this time.

*quack*

Heh, SEQ aside, as one of your "FUN" projects mess around with some code in linux. Actually, first checkout www.gentoo.org and get a development box up and running. Having a box litterally custom compiled by you to start with has a geek factor on its own.

I used to code heavily for MacOS and Irix (Back in the days when windows was a toy OS and if ya needed to do any real kind of graphics ya did it in Irix, or cheaper, on a mac). I was getting frustrated with MacOS for one reason or another and having time i started fooling around with linux when it was very infantile. It's come a long way.

The compilers are now increadably robust. Actually, they are better than anything found in the windows world for pure code crankage. CVS rocks too. Takes a while to find an editor you like, and the framework if you are used to using one, is lacking or not there at all.

Coding is done a little differently in linux/unix. The tools are robust, the pretty compiler graphics/debugging are not. However, if ya play wtih it a bit, and actually get a feel for it, its REAL nice. Coding with an editor is set up for text/keyboard use. Being able to hot key around large chunks of code, colapse and expand fuctions, jump to fuctions, ect all without having to take the time to use a mouse or some goofy interface is nice. Any serious coder will understand what I mean by this.

I'm not advocating you switch... your bread and butter seems to be on what ever platform you are coding for. But for simple enjoymnet of coding stuff for yourself, linux is really, really fun to screw around in. You ahve total control over everything, everything is well documentd on the net, and if ya cant find docs/info jsut look at the libs or source.. its all there for ya. Its a ton of fun.

Just my 2cps.

[devnul]

"If it was just a "tweak", it wouldnt be a big deal. I kinda doubt they'd maintain a seperate codebase just to be sneaky with the evil seq users." - Mvern

Well they ALREADY maintain a seperate codebase. That bit would be just never move to live. I mean it's not like they ever REALLY test the new code on Test anyway.

Sort of a chloroform deploying portable enticement snare for SEQ programmers.

Is it worth their trouble? Well they try a lot of other much harder technically things which all failed. Why not try psyops? A lot less work. And if they are it is succeeding better from a resources expended vs SEQ downtime perspective. Mainly because we are _not even aware we are under attack_.

I want to take this time to thank you for all your efforts btw Mvern. SEQ has continued to exist recently largely because of you. We owe you much.

dn

PS Bottom line. As long as they keep different netcode on test SEQ does not work on live. They have to have noticed this.

[orenwolf]

Originally posted by BlueAdept


Ratt has already provided a means to make a donation. The EFF is a good organization and one that needs to be supported.
I never suggested otherwise. :) Doesn't change the fact that a "tip jar" may provide motivation.



Making a "pool" isnt a good idea because then it creates an aura of competitiveness where devs might not share code with each other because it might help another dev get further ahead of another.
Well, that's rather unlikely, since the code would be released as OSS anyway. Moreover, as I've already said, if it turns out the multiple people contribute to the fix, it'll be split up as such. I seriously doubt the devs would choose to not collaborate for $50. :)

[Alfred]

You are obviously a "the glass is half full" kind of person. ;)

[fryfrog]

what about all the people that worked to get showeq to THIS point, where a "fix" is possible? if you take away the work of EVERYONE that has contributed to SEQ thus far, a "fix" would be pretty useless.

i believe that all of the SEQ devs would release a fix when they had it working if they were paid or not, because you don't come 4 yours on an open source project for the money. sure, a "tip jar" would be nice... but it would be unfair to ONLY give it to the dev that solves the problem. i would be willing to bet that if all of you willing to "tip" a dev would use the money and go take a programming class or buy a programming book and help out, the devs would be much more thankful.

just my humble opinion. as a fair number of people have pointed out already, SEQ has been broken badly before. broken for a long time even. eventually, it gets fixed. sometimes its someone who no one has seen up until that point (kinda like mvern) or one of the old time devs. thats the beauty of open source. help them fix it.

[Jillian]

Originally posted by devnul
Bottom line. As long as they keep different netcode on test SEQ does not work on live. They have to have noticed this. I think you're on to something there...

[orenwolf]

Originally posted by fryfrog
what about all the people that worked to get showeq to THIS point, where a "fix" is possible? if you take away the work of EVERYONE that has contributed to SEQ thus far, a "fix" would be pretty useless.

i believe that all of the SEQ devs would release a fix when they had it working if they were paid or not, because you don't come 4 yours on an open source project for the money. sure, a "tip jar" would be nice... but it would be unfair to ONLY give it to the dev that solves the problem. i would be willing to bet that if all of you willing to "tip" a dev would use the money and go take a programming class or buy a programming book and help out, the devs would be much more thankful.

just my humble opinion. as a fair number of people have pointed out already, SEQ has been broken badly before. broken for a long time even. eventually, it gets fixed. sometimes its someone who no one has seen up until that point (kinda like mvern) or one of the old time devs. thats the beauty of open source. help them fix it.

Sure. I bet they would too. This isn't a bribe, this is a way to motivate them, if they haven't been motivated to this point. there's nothing wrong with that.

And unless you are trying to say that the devs will suddenly refuse to do work without payment (which I submit is 1000% untrue), then a tip jar is exactly what it seems like - motivation to do the work they have not done to this point for some reason.

and yes, most definately, offering a tip jar like this might just convince someone who has done no work on ShowEQ so far to contribute, which is *always* a good thing. :)

[Aurelius]

I threw a case of beer donation in before I realized that the EFF was gonna get it all. (( What's fifeteen bucks? But damn, I'd still kick another case in if I new a valid paypal account that Ratt or the rest wanted. ))

[Alfred]

I've changed my mind. I don't think that this will help however good the intentions.

I think the best medicine right now is to offer verbal support and praise.

[kevinargh]

Scheduled Downtime

Patch for Tuesday has been canceled
The patch originally scheduled for Tuesday, April 1st, has been cancelled.

The EverQuest Operations Team


i hope this is an april fools joke. figures the one time i've ever been looking forward to patch day it's cancelled. why don't they ever cancel the patches that break seq? :confused:

[Zeppo]

Well, it looks like mvern gets the booty!

Where do we send the money?
=)

[Aurelius]

Originally posted by Zeppo
Well, it looks like mvern gets the booty!

Where do we send the money?
=)

What do you mean? This is the end of an all nighter so if the meaning is clear, disregard. ))

[orenwolf]

Congratulations MVern. :)

Kindly provide us with a paypal account of your own, and, at minimum, you'll have my $50 USD within it, as well as those others who may have agreed with me.

[Lyroschen]

Can you send beer and hookers via pay-pal? or just cash? hehe

[mvern]

Just wanted to say thanks to orenwolf.

Also, wanted to point out again that my work on showeq is not dependant on any donations or anything of the sort, and I'm not actually asking for any.

[PainNSuffering]

Also, wanted to point out again that my work on showeq is not dependant on any donations or anything of the sort, and I'm not actually asking for any

You turned down free beer and hookers? Help our devs have been abducted!

I don't know who you are but we want mvern back! :p

[Aurelius]

Jumpin Judas Priest, I can't believe I missed the Grand Re-Opening!! That's what too much game'll do yas. And for the life of me I douldn't figure out what the heck was wrong with my new copiled version until I realized (first) that I needed a new libEQ.a and then (2nd) had to put it in the RIGHT directory (usr/lib). Face was all kinds of distorted when I realized the above. ))

Many thanx goes out to all you head-case guys. mvern, you get the plus up from this no-brainer guy. )))

Be cool if someday we had an 'SEQ Fan Faire' to actually see all the faces that go with all the praises. )) Then we could finally 'get straight' with everyone. ))