New Bounty Ideas?

Thursday, 08 January 2009 05:38

Recently our MacBook bounty failed, the deadline was missed once, an extension was given, and contact to whom the bounty was assigned also failed. It's unfortunate, but we must move on! I'll be contacting the donors to find out if they'd like a refund, or if they'll leave their money with us so that we can make a decision where it should go. Most of the money was from another failed bounty though.

In any case, we need some new bounty ideas, so leave some comments please (up to $750 are available)! I'll probably start a poll next week to see what would be a good bounty. For me, the only thing that comes to mind really is Wifi support, but that's probably a huge undertaking.

Comments

0 # karl 2009-01-08 05:54

mmadia suggested this:

dev.haiku-os.org/wiki/R1/AlphaStatus

0 # thenerd 2009-01-08 11:26

There are a few pieces of software that I commonly use that I would like to see running on Haiku. Here is a list.

- BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure For Network Computing) this is my #1 choice because it would open the doors to allow the individual applications that run in BOINC to be ported (and because TeamHaiku ROCKS!)
- FileZilla
- OpenOffice.org or Lotus Symphony
- Pidgin IM
- Notepad
- Some sort of SIP compliant VoIP software
- Jabber/XMPP client and/or server

These are just some suggestions. I haven't checked whether or not there are active projects or current versions of any of these.

Cheers!
D

0 # kaliber 2009-01-08 19:48

GTK (GDK). All requirements for GTK are ported (atk, cairo, pango, glib, ....)

0 # MaxOS 2009-01-08 22:30

kaliber: you are obstinate

but yeach it would be good to have: OpenOffice or somethink similar, GTK, qt, or BOOST (need for swf and gnash)

0 # We need resolve the last bug!! — atomozero 2009-01-08 23:44

http://dev.haiku-os.org/wiki/R1/AlphaStatus

0 # atomozero 2009-01-08 23:59

These need to be fixed in order to release the alpha.

#1444 SATA testing on real hardware - fails to boot
#1689 acquire_sem doesn't timeout
#1739 Include a build system script to generate a proper 'develop' directory on Haiku
#2197 KDL when starting Firefox
#2912 [Alpha 1]: Tracker for the proposals
#3150 BFS directory corruption.
#3151 KDL when copying data between 2 BFS partitions.

0 # thenerd 2009-01-09 00:19

You said "some new bounty ideas" so I assume you want to split it up between a few? How many were you thinking? 3 or 4?

0 # atomozero 2009-01-09 00:40

if the bounty is big, split 2 or max 3 bouny...

0 # 3G / UMTS — rossi 2009-01-09 01:04

I would love to see 3G/UTMS support, consisting of the required 3G/UMTS stack, drivers (specifically Sierra Wireless - Linux driver available - as used in Lifebook Q) and an respective connection manager application.

Additionally support for the Huawei Mobile Connect Express (Model: E800) would be acceptable.

0 # karl 2009-01-09 01:31

Quote:

if the bounty is big, split 2 or max 3 bouny...

The bounty may be around $750. I'd rather keep it all in one bounty to make sure it's attractive enough to take on.

0 # karl 2009-01-09 02:19

Haiku needs a good messenger application. I was looking around and found this Yahoo Messenger (with sources):

crystaltracker.beosmax.org/

It doesn't run on Haiku. I tried downloading libyahoo2:

libyahoo2.sourceforge.net/

And dropped and replaced the older libyahoo2 sources included in the Yahoo sources. I then tried compiling, but it didn't work. It did compile 30/72 objects, and I'm sure someone who knew what they were doing could make a go of it...

Those sources should probably be posted to OSDrawer for better exposure.

0 # karl 2009-01-09 02:38

Woah, I just read this!

Quote:

In other developments, we have seen some improvements to Haiku's network drivers, including a couple drivers ported from FreeBSD by Ithamar Adema to improve the wired LAN support for EeePCs. Ithamar has also reported that he would like to work on porting FreeBSD's wireless stack where Fredrik Holmqvist left off.

www.haiku-os.org/news/2008-12-25/happy_holidays_from_haiku

I know Ithamar has been receptive to the idea of bounties before...

0 # karl 2009-01-09 03:23

I've just contacted Ithamar re: a wireless bounty. He replied that he's going to see how much work it is and then get back to me this weekend...

0 # Skype — 0033 2009-01-09 06:11

How about a decent Skype client?

0 # Nvidia opensource drivers — skarmiglione 2009-01-09 07:10

http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/
Nvidia opensource drivers port can be a big hit :-)

...ndiswrapper...gnash, swfdec,... Oppenoffice really needed nobody really consider haiku to evereday use if no have office suite,....wine.
Java.

0 # skarmiglione 2009-01-09 07:11

Amsn too.

0 # emitrax 2009-01-09 08:05

Why don't you just support IMKit instead of keep porting other OS stuff?

1 - IMKit: full support for msn (or|and) gmail

that would be a very good start.

2 - Java

3 - Webkit (I see no browser around)

4 - Flash.

5 - Bluetooth: second part (two layers are missing)

0 # Adek336 2009-01-09 09:22

Boost. Java. BOINC. Wifi. Netsurf. Nativeclient.

0 # Adek336 2009-01-09 09:24

And a theming system to change the look n feel !

0 # Adek336 2009-01-09 09:26

Which would enable us to easily switch between themes or create new ones.

0 # karl 2009-01-09 09:33

@theming... see www.haiku-os.org/blog/mmu_man/2008-01-25/the_bowels_of_the_theme_manager_or_how_to_make_haiku_as_ugly_as_zeta

0 # Adek336 2009-01-09 10:26

So if a theme manager is available, why is there a theme changing patch on the forums? Why wouldn't they use the theme manager instead?

0 # lxstoian 2009-01-09 12:04

Why not port an UVC driver for haiku?

0 # karl 2009-01-09 12:13

@lxstoian, that's another good option; at least, I'd rather have that before Skype lol.

0 # ithamar 2009-01-09 12:13

@Ixstoian

UVC will require isochr. transfer support in the USB stack, which is currently only supported on UHCI (one of three controller types). For example, my EeePC has the UVC cam on EHCI, which doesn't support iso xfers.

Implementing iso xfers in EHCI and/or OHCI would be a good bounty too though ;-)

0 # thenerd 2009-01-09 14:56

As much as I am a fan of supporting the Alpha goals and OS functionality it would like to see some new applications ported (or created new) for Haiku. I see Adek336 also mentioned BOINC. I think that would be an excellent application to have. Urias already ported the distributed.net client to Haiku.

0 # why i suggested alpha1 targets — mmadia 2009-01-09 15:36

imVHo setting alpha1 targets as bounties is an excellent opportunity for the non-developer community to add their weight in the push for releasing the alpha.

Hopefully the cash incentive will encourage any of the devs to iron out the kinks in several of the show stoppers, such as the ticket#3150, the IOScheduler, the ATA bus manager, making Python functional at least to the BeOS client, restoring existing LiveCD functionality, extending LiveCD functionality to a true LiveCD with some sort of configuration and file saving option, and so on.

All of these can be individual bounties. Since these tasks are well defined continuations of Haiku's existing codebase, there will be no porting issues, no dependency issues, or feelings of being overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the task at hand.

Due to the nature of these tasks, the bounty can be significantly lower than Haikuware's past bounties: roughly $1100, $800, $1800. Having said that, I personally don't know what the exact amount of each bounty should be.

In closing, this provides a direct avenue for the community to directly finance and encourage the final push for R1/Alpha. More importantly, this will encourage any developer to focus on Haiku, as opposed to diverting their energies to non-OS programs.

0 # sjusen 2009-01-09 19:10

boost, Bluetooth: second part, IM kit, working Abiword.

0 # MaxOS 2009-01-10 03:31

And they would can return to CUPS. What chances we have, that this port to be successful?
Ithamar: this question for you ;-)

0 # ithamar 2009-01-10 04:13

@MaxOS: If I understand you correctly, and you're asking for how easy/hard a CUPS port would be these days, I would say that porting it would be relatively easy, reaching ZETA-level integration would be a little more work (work on the PostScript printer driver required), and still a large job if you want full integration into the printing architecture BeOS/Haiku has today.

My previous failure was mainly a lack of available time :sad:

0 # karl 2009-01-10 05:12

Last I heard, Vasper was able to compile CUPS under Haiku, but some library was needed to start the daemon. Scott at Haiku-Ports was going to work on that.

0 # ithamar 2009-01-10 05:17

Compiling core cups isn't really the problem. I've got a patch for CUPS too that will actually make it run. The real meat in CUPS is in the foomatic tools, and the lower-level printer drivers.

0 # Bounty Target — ithamar 2009-01-10 06:20

Ok, I've had a closer look at wireless, and I personally feel we shouldn't push for this at this time. There's a lot to be done for it to work properly, and I guess we'd like to have it supported in a more fundemental way then just a 'simple' recompile from BSD (which would make it part of the FreeBSD compatiblity layer).

Anyway, at this point, with the Alpha getting closer, I have to agree that putting the effort into the tickets open for the Alpha would have my personal preference. Getting it out there is really important, and I'd rather see the Alpha out soon ;-)

0 # nvidia drivers opengl acceleration support — cebif 2009-01-11 21:54

Quote from skarmiglione "Nvidia opensource drivers port can be a big hit ". If these drivers can support opengl accelleration then it would open the door for games like FlightGear and many others.