I’m sorry in advance if this is not the right place to ask this, but I’ve been trying to do some tweakings in KDE Plasma for a while and I’m starting to run out of time…
I would need a KDE developer, someone who’s used to the source code (around the base DE, not the specific applications) to assist me implementing some features / tweakings in the desktop environment, for remuneration (like in Fiverr, but more specific ).
I already know exactly what I want to edit ; I can give you the list, but overall it must not be very complicated…
Is some developer interested? Please let me know, I’m open to questions.
Depending on what you want, your request might be unsuitable for merging into the master branch, so you might need a custom build just for your purposes. Be prepared for that. That said, I hope you do find a dev who is willing to do that for you for a fee. Feature requests for a fee are a good way to support Free software development. It worked beautifully with Inkscape.
I think you’re artificially limiting your audience of potential developers by not mentioning (1) the actual stuff you want implemented, (2) the scale of fee you have in mind. As an “available” KDE developer, I’m not going to contact you for those. The default assumption is always that bounties are barely large enough to bother with requests that are quite possibly a lot of work for changes that aren’t particularly important for the community at large.
It’s up to you to prove this default assumption wrong. The best thing you can do in that regard is to provide specific information about your request and make it easy for people to say yes (or no). Link to the Bugzilla issues that you’ve hopefully already created, which describe what you’re looking for and why it’s a good idea. Give us some idea how much money you’re thinking of, and what the process would be to “earn” it. If different apps or components are involved, break up your request into separate parts that can be worked on individually by different people if necessary. Link to the changes that you’ve already pushed to your existing KDE Invent repositories.
As a developer, I’m not going to spend more than a few hours on something when the pay is only $200 or something. And even then I’ll balance it against the hassle of coordination, approval, working on stuff that I may not myself consider important, possible conflict of interest with project maintainers, having to file extra contractor income on my tax return, and whatnot. You’re working against all of these forces. Make it easy for people like me. As it stands, your post will likely have less of an uptake than it could have.
Here is the current list of things I wish to implement / see implemented ; to me, it appears a competent KDE developer with a good knowledge of the codebase wouldn’t have too much troubles patching them, but then again, you can say I’m wrong.
Starting by the “most difficult” according my intuition :
Gwenview: (The image viewer) make the transitions between the pictures “cleaner” when no fade animation; when I transition to the next image of an album (by pressing arrow keys, selecting the thumbnails, etc), there’s an intermediary blank page while loading the next image. I would like the viewer to transition from one picture to another without subliminal blank nor fading animation.
Misc HMI: For menu bars only, remove the fade animation when I move my mouse left to right (e.g., when I unfold the “File” menu, there’s a fade in; when I move my mouse to the menu on its right, lets say “Edit”, I would like to get rid of the fade).
Dolphin: Make the middle mouse click on a folder, open it in a new window by default instead of a new tab. Also, in the context menu, I would like to have this option on top.
Juk: (The music player) make it automatically play audio file when I open with Juk (not sure I understood how to use it though, so let’s talk about this one).
Plasma: Swap the default keyboard shortcut for opening the Disconnect menu and opening KSysguard; I want CTRL+ESC to Disconnect, and CTRL+ALT+DEL opening KSysguard.
KNewStuff: Get rid of the invitations to download and install currently uninstalled products (Filelight for example).
Almost every configuration window: The header text is misaligned, and it triggers me…
I haven’t created Bugzilla issues because as you can see, except maybe one or two, they’re not really “issues”: each one of them is purely for my own comfort (I can describe them in more details if you want).
For all this, if the work is well done, I’m intended to be ready to spend a sum up to $500; but I’m of course open to bargaining.
Thanks, that’s much more targeted and useful. A few extra thoughts (without necessarily signing up for any of these tasks):
The “Gwenview” distracting blank pages, “Misc HMI” superfluous fade animation and “Almost every configuration window” misaligned header texts can definitely considered bugs and would really benefit from a dedicated Bugzilla page each (if other people haven’t already filed something already). Misaligned header text needs more info either way, may as well do it in Bugzilla. The other two are straightforward shortcomings but perhaps not quite trivial to fix, as you say.
The “Dolphin” and “KNewStuff” points sound like they could be made into configuration options. Unless you want to keep recompiling KDE for future versions, in which case it does sound like easy patches, but more work overall and doesn’t benefit other community members. Consequently, I think time would be best spent to get buy-in from the respective maintainer(s) by making the case for these options, and Bugzilla is also the appropriate place for that kind of discussion. It then counts as a “feature request” kind of issue, but it’s still an issue.
Perhaps the “Juk” bullet point also falls in this category, but I haven’t looked at the current behavior so perhaps it’s indeed just about using it correctly.
I haven’t encountered KNewStuff download/install invitations. Not the most familiar with it, but reproduction steps would certainly help too. (I’m only aware of e.g. “Get Blender…” style items in KRunner / Desktop Search, which can be easily disabled in the configuration.)
As for “Plasma”, swapping default keyboard shortcuts would be an issue of advocacy first and foremost. This needs less of a developer (again, unless you want to maintain patches and keep compiling Plasma going forward) and more of a nuanced discussion with Plasma maintainers. Needless to say, this would be hard to do without a Bugzilla issue because people need a chance to chime in. (Matrix chats could be a way to scope out where the developers stand, though.)
To clarify for others, “Disconnect” is known as “Log Out” on my system. Which by default displays the dialog with also Shutdown and Reboot options, I figure that’s why it’s assigned to Ctrl+Alt+Del.
Out of curiosity, why are custom-set shortcuts not sufficient? Even for multiple/automated deployments, it seems much easier to me to write shortcut config files as opposed to changing the hardcoded defaults.
Thanks for bearing with me trying to make the case for individual Bugzilla issues. If we want these changes upstream (and I agree that those sound mostly beneficial for a wider audience), then having Bugzilla pages to reference makes things easier for everyone.
On one hand, you might get a motivated project maintainer (or other developer) fix your issue without even knowing about this forum post. It increases the chance of these bullet points to be worked on.
On the other hand, it makes it possible for different people to jump in. Your bullet points cover quite a variety of components, I might find some of them very doable/inviting but others too daunting to try. Splitting up the work into digestible parts gets it done more easily.
And also, it provides a proper thread of discussion that’s simpler to track for contributors, but also documents for the greater public why a change was deemed necessary. As a bounty hunter, it provides extra support and justification to maintainers in case they’re not (yet) convinced. Now there’s two people (one requester, one patch submitter) who think this change makes sense.
I also had another thought. How about offering to donate a part of your $500 to KDE e.V. for each issue that was fixed to your satisfaction? As an alternative to working for a personal fee. That way you don’t just attract developers with financial aspirations, but also developers who’d skip the payment hassle but just care to boost their contribution to KDE. Earning money changes the attitude towards the work, and makes it feel like work, whereas directing some extra donations towards KDE can be a different kind of motivator and maybe the morally pure one.
Again, no guarantees that any of this will work. I’m just trying to bridge the substantial gap between bounties offered (which are always hairy to pull off) and work being done. It’s great to have people noticing and reporting also the minor issues, I hope you can get something useful out of this.
I don’t think there is anything “morally impure” about paying a developer to do some directed work. The OP wants something done and lacks the ability (knowledge, time, etc…) to do it himself, so he wishes to outsource that to someone who has that ability and would like to be paid for their work. Completely fair, in my book, as long as everything is well-defined in advance and both sides stick to the deal.
It all comes down to what can better accomplish the goal. Donating $500 to an organisation might have a lesser impact than donating it to an individual developer. On the other hand, it may very well be the opposite. It’s difficult to tell, without trying.
With Inkscape, users paying developers by the hour to work on specific issues and features has proven to be a very effective strategy to get work done, and everyone benefited from it. The fact Inkscape now has multi-page support is a direct result of that. Nothing morally impure about it, especially if the end result ends up as part of the open source (but even if the result is a private fork, that is not distributed to the public, it is still a voluntary transaction that harms nobody).
I understand, thank you for your analysis on each of my points.
I’ll formally create bugzilla reports for the Gwenview and the misaligned header text in configs, since I agree these may be considered as general bugs, and will be beneficial for everyone.
About Dolphin / KNewStuff, I just want to get rid of the whole “Non-installed” section of the context menu, where they propose to download Filelight, etc; I’m not sure it can be considered as a bug though…
And about the keyboard shortcuts, the thing is that CTRL+ESC is hardcoded to open KSysguard when enabled, as far as I know… although there’s an option to edit keyboard shortcuts, it doesn’t seem to work.
The goal of the fee to me is that I would really need help implementing most of these changes -or someone implementing them for me-, as soon as possible (precisely, before August 4th. Yes, it’s precise).
Thus, having a developer whom I can talk to and pay him to do some work for me (and for the project in general, for some changes) in KDE would be my best bet.
If you want help implementing things you can jump in #kde-devel:kde.org on Matrix to chat with KDE developers.
Alternatively, if you’re wanting someone to do it for you, the KDE e.V. has a list: KDE e.V. Trusted IT Consulting Firms - KDE e.V. that it trusts for doing this kind of thing, code for a fee.
However, is it really for me ? I mean the list looks like it’s meant for businesses and companies… if not, is there a simpler way to get in touch with a developer ?
I’m not sure if you understand what we do. Our community is mostly made up of people doing this work in their free time (and a select few are either working for eV or an adjacent organization listed on that page.)
If you want to fix the issues you think might help the greater community, there is nothing better than doing it yourself. (Which is free, by the way!) You might be able to find someone willing to do it for money, but I don’t think that’s many KDE developers (I can’t really think of any ) You are only one individual, while developers already have enough on their plate
I agree with your concern there, which is also the crux of the issue here. It’s hard to find someone in that no-man’s-land between unpaid volunteers (who aren’t in it for the money, probably have a main career already for that purpose) and people already paid to work on KDE (whose contractor/employment income dwarfs the scale of a bug bounty).
Your bug bounty is substantial enough, and most of the proposed fixes beneficial enough for the community, that it might motivate someone to prefer your bugs over some others that they were going to look at. Heck, I might have a look at that config dialog header spacing perhaps. But August 4th is a very tight deadline. I worry that you may not be able to find a dedicated developer this way, and professional consultancies will likely charge more for this assortment of issues.
For now let’s say we remove the deadline, how do you think I should ‘declare’ a bug bounty? Should I append for example a suffix “($100 BOUNTY)” to the title of the report, or is there a more adapted way of doing this?
For the rest of my requests, given the circumstances, I think I will try to do it myself, with the help of experienced KDE developers; via the Matrix chat…
Yes, 4th August is just slightly over two weeks from today. I fear that’s quite an unrealistic deadline, I’d be surprised if by then you even manage to come up with an agreement with someone to do your task. I’m sure it’s possible to find someone, but in such a short time, I don’t know…
It would certainly be ideal if there was somewhere in between the “KDE e.V’s trusted list” and “just file a feature request and wait” that allowed users to place money into a third party that would sort out the money and work done. Though they would likely need to take a portion of the money for transfer fees and overseeing the work is done to the requester’s standards and also that the developer is paid. It would be a delicate job.
I’m afraid not, but there is 1.5x speed setting that makes it about half an hour long, which is probably manageable, especially in the background when doing something else… I don’t know.
).
) You are only one individual, while developers already have enough on their plate 
