Open-source bounty explained

An open-source bounty is a monetary reward for completing a task in an open-source software project.

Description

Bounties are usually offered as an incentive for fixing software bugs or implementing minor features.^[1] Bounty driven development is one of the business models for open-source software. The compensation offered for an open-source bounty is usually small.^[2]

Examples of bounties

• 2023: The Prettier Challenge to write a Rust program that would pass 95% of the test suite for the prettier code formatter was completed within three weeks, with an award of $22,500 to Biome contributors.^{[3] [4]}
• 2018: Mozilla Firefox's WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) bug was submitted by Education First to Bountysource for $50,000.^[5]
• 2015: Artifex Software offered up to $1000 to anyone who fixes some of the issues posted on Ghostscript Bugzilla.^[6]
• 2008: Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2010) announced $1 million in bounties for developing OpenSolaris, NetBeans, OpenSPARC, GlassFish, OpenOffice.org, and OpenJDK.^[7]
• 2004: Mozilla introduced a Security Bug Bounty Program, offering $500 to anyone who finds a "critical" security bug in Mozilla.^[8]
• Two software bounties were completed for the Amiga Research Operating System (AROS), implementing a free Kickstart ROM replacement for use with the UAE emulator and FPGA Amiga reimplementations, as well as original Amiga hardware.^{[9] [10]}
• RISC OS Open bounty scheme to encourage development of RISC OS^[11]
• AmiZilla was an over $11,000 bounty to port the Firefox web browser to AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS. While the bounty produced few direct results, it inspired many bounty systems in the Amiga community, including Timberwolf, Power2people, AROS Bounties, and Amigabounty.net .

See also

• Bountysource
• Bug bounty program
• Business models for open-source software
• Crowdfunding
• Google Summer of Code

Notes and References

1. Towards understanding an open-source bounty: Analysis of bountysource . Kanda . T. . Guo . M. . Hata . H. . Matsumoto . K. . 2017 . 2017 IEEE 24th International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER) . 577–578 . IEEE.
2. Studying backers and hunters in bounty issue addressing process of open source projects . Zhou . J. . Wang . S. . Zhang . H. . Chen . T.H.P. . Hassan . A.E. . 2021 . . 26 . 4 . 1–36 . Springer. 10.1007/s10664-021-09979-z . 254472802 . subscription .
3. Web site: The Prettier Challenge. 30 October 2023 . Algora, Public Benefit Corporation. 11 February 2024.
4. Web site: Biome formatter wins the Prettier challenge. 27 November 2023 . Biome. 11 February 2024.
5. Web site: 2019-10-08 . Bountysource, Education First increase Mozilla WebRTC bounty to a whopping $50,000! . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20191008103829/https://blog.canya.com/2018/05/03/bountysource-education-first-increase-mozilla-webrtc-bounty-to-a-whopping-50000/ . 2019-10-08 . 2024-01-21 . CanYa Blog.
6. Web site: Ghostscript: Bug bounty program. 14 July 2015.
7. News: Sun sets $1 million open source bounty . iTnews . . Shaun Nichols . 30 January 2008 . 5 May 2025.
8. Web site: Brief: Mozilla offers bounty for bugs . Linda Rosencrance . . 3 August 2004 . 11 June 2022.
9. Web site: Amiga.org - Kickstart ROM Replacement (Phase II) Assigned. 14 July 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20101206191839/http://www.amiga.org/forums/printthread.php?t=55226. 6 December 2010. dead.
10. Web site: Kickstart ROM Replacement (Phase II). 14 July 2015.
11. Web site: RISC OS Open: All bounties. 14 July 2015.