Source code openness and Ubuntu bounty projects

[Ben Collins]

On Sun, 2006-06-25 at 14:39 -0400, Jung-woo Sohn wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Can I ask a quick question about how Ubuntu bounty projects go on? I am 
> a grad student working on the effect of profit incentives on open source 
> projects with bounty.
> 
> My question is as follows. When you engage in any bounty projects, does 
> the source code need to be kept open all the time or can it be closed 
> until the project completion? I know that all projects will be 
> eventually open to public but I am wondering what happens to the source 
> code openness while the bounty project is ongoing.

I can't give you an official answer, but I would expect that the bounty
only relies on the end result, not any sort of interim progress. So it
should not matter either way.

I can see that a bounty might have the effect of keeping it closed till
completion. Someone might be worried about their work being stolen
before they finish, and someone else collecting the bounty. This at
least was the case for the "Dual booting WinXP/MacOSX on x86 Macs"
bounty not too long ago. Proof had been provided before hand, but how to
do it was not shown to the public until after the bounty was locked in.

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