Can I pay someone to add a specific feature to an open source app?
I'm not a programmer, so I can't really do it myself. Is it allowed for me to go to some random dude, pay him 20 bucks to write the code, then have him add it to the GitHub?
(If you're wondering what the app/feature is, I want to be able to shuffle play on the findroid app like you would be able to on the jellyfin web interface )
20 bucks is definitely not the amount you'd likely need to offer. Though if you're talking to current project maintainers you might be able to contribute that towards a feature bounty.
Picking a random dev off the street and asking them to contribute to a code base they've never seen before is going to be a multi-day ask at minimum and, if you're looking to actually attract someone with money that'll be a few hundred dollars minimum.
There are usually kofis or similar for projects you can contribute to and you can always create or upvote a ticket to create the feature.
Agree, but before any one else takes the time:
https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Ajarnedemeulemeester%2Ffindroid+shuffle&type=code
Function is already in place, just TODO, and a 30 second code scan shows clean, standard code base. Anyone who's worked on Android and familliar with the layout library could probably do this in a few hours not including set up time.
$20 is still no where close, though. Feature donation is def the way to go.
https://github.com/jarnedemeulemeester/findroid
This is the repository? They have a ko-fi link in the repository meaning they accept donations to support the development. Have you tried contacting the lead developer of the project and asking if they would be interested in adding the feature you want if you sponsored it via a donation?
This is a good idea. It's a lot easier to incentivize a maintainer who is already familiar with a project and invested in it with some money than it is to get a person who is unfamiliar with a project.
How much you should donate and how likely they are to agree depends on how complex your request is, whether they feel it fits in with the project for other people, and how busy they are.
You can definitely do it but 20$ is outrageously low. Some projects do allow you to put a bounty on feature requests. But the feature you're asking sounds non-trivial. The work to implement it includes getting familiar with the project, coding the feature, testing it, writing automated tests, updating documentation, opening the pull request for review and making changes requested by the maintained during review. You're looking at several hours/days of work. 20$ for this amount of work is a small tip.
Like I said, I don't really know that much about programming an application so I thought it would be pretty simple.... Thanks for the response!
There's a lot more to publishing a book than writing words 🙂
Unless you live in a country where you are not allowed to write code or to pay other people, I don't see why you couldn't pay someone to do something that is not illegal in your stead
Just open an issue on the github suggesting the feature. You can also make a ko-fi donation as someone suggested. Doing something like that as straight-up paid work is legit, but it would cost a heck of a lot more than $20, as everyone has already said.
I wouldn’t accept $20 to do that.
You’re basically offering someone $20 to figure out the assembly line, break apart an assembly line, and build a new machine that works within the assembly line.
That’s not a $20 job
You're missing a zero or two on that offer amount of you want someone who actually knows what they're doing to even consider doing it.
Some larger projects have what's called a feature bounty, like others have mentioned $20 is very low for someone not familiar with the codebase to do it, it might be enough for someone already familiar with it (but I seriously doubt it since it involves at least some refactoring of the UI to add a shuffle button). However if more people want that feature they can each contribute a small amount and eventually it would be a value that would justify someone to learn the codebase.
That being said, like someone else pointed out, it seems the app is going through some rewriting, so I wouldn't expect any new features (especially those involving UI) anytime soon.
Finally there are two issues mentioning shuffle in the GitHub, https://github.com/jarnedemeulemeester/findroid/issues/334 and https://github.com/jarnedemeulemeester/findroid/issues/547 you might want to create an account there and voice your wanting of that feature too, by either adding a thumbs up or a comment explaining why this is important to you.
Good luck, hope you get your shuffle play!
Edit: forgot to answer your question directly, yes, you can pay someone to contribute to an open source project, nothing wrong about that. But as a general rule it would be cheaper to give money to the people who are already working on the project.
I read a study one time about lawyers who were more likely to offer pro bono work than to do a job when paid lower than their going rate.
You should first just ask the developer(s) of the software if they’ll add the feature. They could say yes.
Try your luck searching for someone on https://www.fiverr.com/
Just a heads up it looks like the dev is doing a major overhaul to the project and might reject the pull request to merge the change.
https://github.com/jarnedemeulemeester/findroid
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Findroid is currently being rewritten to Jetpack Compose. Because of this, the main branch may be unusable for some time. Also, please refrain from creating pull requests which involve the old Views based UI.
if it's open source, you can definitely have someone copy that code, make the change you want and use that modified version.
if you wish to redistribute the modified version, some rules will apply depending on the type of licensing of the original program.
if you wish your changes to be integrated to the "official" version of the program, that's a bit more difficult, as this change would have to be accepted by the owner of the code repository, it needs to fit the code quality, planned features implementation, pass the tests, and that people involved have time for and interest in your changes.
There is also unexpected consequences of that feature. Like that feature could create bugs that would go beyond just creating that feature. But at the end of the day create a feature request bug report with a very detailed ask. Then reach out to the owner and ask two things one would they be willing to implement the feature at all and if so would they prioritize it if you paid them and what you are willing to pay.
It's very similar to artist commission negotiations. The third thing to ask is if they no to prioritize question is if you paid someone else to create a PR for your feature would they accept it. If the answer is yes you can try to find someone but it will always be more expensive. Since like others have said they have to learn the codebase.
Yeah but you're gonna need a lot more than $20.
Developers usually make $50-300/hour. Some features require 8-2000 hours to develop.
So do the math and offer a realistic bounty to pay the dev for their time, and they'll probably do it.
Developers usually make $50-300/hour.
That seems like an overestimate even for US. More importantly, I don't think most open source developers earn this much money (otherwise they wouldn't ask for tiny donations), and hence it's not the relevant figure. If I'm wrong about this, please do tell me - I very much would like to know if the hours I occasionally spend on open-source contributions can instead earn me hundreds of dollars. ;)
You’re not wrong, I don’t know why people are downvoting you.
Somehow they believe the wages paid in the US is normalized everywhere else.
Some senior developers in the EU for example make a salary of ~60k euro. Which roughly translate to 30 hourly.
Not to mention third world country where all these Corporations outsource their work.
Mind you OP asked about a open source project and not a scaled enterprise software
I have done that two times on Upwork, one time I got a really great experience and other time was a waste of money.
In case of the good experience, the code got merged to the project and everyone was happy.
How much did you pay? It seems like 20 USD is far too low according to the comments...
$20 is not worth the time to plan anything, let alone create it. Just consider the hourly.
Around $50 but it was a smaller change.
On the failed job I lost around $500 I think.
For an open source project you are welcome to fork it (make a copy for yourself) and modify it however you like. The changes will be only on your fork.
You can also request that the original project pull your changes, in which case it would be available to everyone using it.
As others mentioned, 20 bucks is probably a bit low, but if you have exactly in mind what you need and can write that up thoroughly in a way that can't be misunderstood, one of the folks from India or Pakistan on fiverr.com could probably do it for fairly cheap, assuming it's not a major rewrite but really just a quick enhancement.
Yeah you can if the license doesn't expressly forbid modification, a FOSS program you can fork, pay someone to hack in a feature and build a modified version for you. If someone is familiar with it and it would be a quick edit and build you might be able to get it done for under 50CAD. If not then it will be a couple hundred dollars of work at least.
Just remember to follow the requirements of the program license. If it requires that you make the source also available than just add the modified files to a public git repo somewhere.
You can not force others to change their copy but you can change your own copy or have someone do it for you.
But then good luck with updates
That's why we make groups.
You could pay me $20.
I won't do it just cuz i don't know how, but i also don't have $20.