Personal opinions on offering rewards for work.

[Walter Schulz]

This offer is just wrong in so many ways.

(topic split from https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=9274.0)

[painya]

This offer is just wrong in so many ways.

Nothing like a little capitalism to help things along 

[Stedda]

This offer is just wrong in so many ways.

Agreed but look at other threads it's the new norm since the flood of people when RAW released...

[mva]

This offer is just wrong in so many ways.

The responses of devs and others to this similar offer was different:
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=7739.0

[5D3shooter]

This offer is just wrong in so many ways.

I have to disagree.  Do you like working for free?  We spend thousands on these cameras, and then even more thousands on gear.  How come the magic lantern developers aren't worthy enough to make some money? 
This offer is a way of giving back to them and adding some incentive to fixing a issue that's been raising a lot of concern.  I could just wait until they provide it for free, but I think they deserve some money.  I think more people should man up and put some more pledges, especially those who were whining about not being able to disable the bootFlag in other threads.  Even if it's $20 or $50 bucks.  It all adds up and the devs really do deserve it. 

[Marsu42]

I have to disagree.  Do you like working for free?  We spend thousands on these cameras, and then even more thousands on gear.  How come the magic lantern developers aren't worthy enough to make some money? 
This offer is a way of giving back to them and adding some incentive to fixing a issue that's been raising a lot of concern.  I could just wait until they provide it for free, but I think they deserve some money.

I agree they deserve the money, and I explicitly do agree that people buying 5d3 can donate some to the project while the rest that can barely scrape together the $$$ for a Rebel can profit from the free availability.

However, as you can see from http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Donate they don't ask for money other than donations to the EFF, so I'd suggest an "optimized" :-) offer that includes this possibility other than an individual person.

Last not least imho it's important that this is not "payment" but a small donation to the cause - it's like with all highly qualified people working for free, paying a small amount of money can make the motivation worse because then it's underpaid while for the real value of the work you'd have to add some zeros at the end :-)

Concerning the timeline: Alex, the main dev working on the 5d3 is on vacation, as it seems until for the rest of the year.

[Stedda]

If you really believed what you posted you would have already made donations which by the lack of the title Supporter under your screen name you haven't. I've made several any time something I've found useful was released I've donated.

I agree with Marsu42 its a devaluation of their hard work and hundreds if not thousands of man hours a few people have devoted to understand these cameras.

I also don't agree with offering some small amount of money to get your pressing issue attention... IMO thats wrong in the spirit of this type of open source project.

[5D3shooter]

If you really believed what you posted you would have already made donations which by the lack of the title Supporter under your screen name you haven't. I've made several any time something I've found useful was released I've donated.

I agree with Marsu42 its a devaluation of their hard work and hundreds if not thousands of man hours a few people have devoted to understand these cameras.

I also don't agree with offering some small amount of money to get your pressing issue attention... IMO thats wrong in the spirit of this type of open source project.

I would love to donate, but I refuse to get involved in bitcoin currency.  If they had a paypal, id donate immediately as they deserve money regardless.  This is just an incentive to get the bootflag issue fixed as many people have been asking for months with no answers.  I personally would continue using the bootflag so I can shoot raw anyway, but I want options.  I don't look at it like opening Pandora's box or something like that, I doubt the devs will become money hungry or something.  This is just an incentive.  If $300 is a small amount to you maybe you can pledge an extra 1000??

As far as where the money goes, that's the discretion of the dev that can come through on this.
If Alex is the only one who can tend to this and he's gone, then we may have to wait till he comes back, but I'll wait to hear something first.

Oh and one other thing..MY pressing issue?? This is a lot of people's issue, go read through the forum.  And I'm the one who decided to put up $200 bucks, and only one other guy is chipping in so far.  I would think that's a pretty nice gesture.  Don't be a hater.

[Marsu42]

Oh and one other thing..MY pressing issue?? This is a lot of people's issue, go read through the forum.  And I'm the one who decided to put up $200 bucks, and only one other guy is chipping in so far.  I would think that's a pretty nice gesture.  Don't be a hater.

Personally, I think it's perfectly legit to offer a bug bounty, the really fine and dialectical line here is that money as a little additional incentive is different than paying for work to be done...

... because if it comes across as the latter people adding non-monetary value to ml like patches and testing ask themselves why hard cash should be able to push something to the top of the queue, even with a fixed deadline, when all they can do is kindly ask for something to be done about things they find most pressing.

[maxotics]

You are getting the reaction I feared you would get.   It is why Plato said, of all the forms of government, democracy is the worst.  ML is the Tragedy of the Commons.  ML is anything you want it to be... as long as you don't expect people to work together for a common goal.  Each dev works on what they want.  If you question them, others reprimand you.  There is NO PLAN or TIMELINE I can see, to make ML RAW stable.  I don't want to stereotype, but I will.  The devs are like kids saying they'll clean up their room.  Talk, talk, talk.  ML RAW works well enough now for a stable version to be created.  No one wants to put in the time because, again, the Tragedy of the Commons.  While one dev works on documentation others would work on new cool features that got compliments and recognition. 

In basketball terms, most ML devs do not share the ball!

People who value teamwork are not valued and eventually leave.

The devs have exceptional hacking skills, but just as exceptionally bad social and team-work skills.

Money irritates many here because with money comes responsibility.

I found my time with ML a rich and rewarding learning experience.  It seems it will end there.  The Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera is now in stock and why mess with Canon cameras to get what others have professionally designed and built in a $1,000 camera? 

5D3shooter, I THANK YOU for trying move ML into a more usable version, in the way you were comfortable doing. 

[Stedda]

Oh and one other thing..MY pressing issue?? This is a lot of people's issue, go read through the forum.  And I'm the one who decided to put up $200 bucks, and only one other guy is chipping in so far.  I would think that's a pretty nice gesture.  Don't be a hater.

Compare this post... http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=7125.msg87502#msg87502  to all the happy people using and accepting it in this post http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=2602.0

Still think it's a lot of people? Don't be a whinner.

[engardeknave]

ML is the Tragedy of the Commons.

For that to be true, the "common" resource would be the time, effort--quite literally the lives of the developers here.

ML is anything you want it to be...

What? No. You seem to be suffering from the common misconception that programming is magic that can overcome hardware limitations.

as long as you don't expect people to work together for a common goal. Each dev works on what they want.

They work together toward common goals constantly. I think by "common goal" you actually mean the specific things you want to work the way you want them to work without any sort of understanding of limitations of hardware, and the general necessity of time and effort required resolve issues that can be resolved.

There is NO PLAN or TIMELINE I can see, to make ML RAW stable. I don't want to stereotype, but I will.  The devs are like kids saying they'll clean up their room.  Talk, talk, talk.  ML RAW works well enough now for a stable version to be created.  No one wants to put in the time because, again, the Tragedy of the Commons.  While one dev works on documentation others would work on new cool features that got compliments and recognition.

http://cforbeginners.com

Get to work.

[engardeknave]

Here is my shooter's guide for the EOS-M on this forum

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=8825.msg82944#msg82944

I have done a tremendous about mount research into hybrid focus pixels and have posted it.  I have written scripts.  Here

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=7908.msg70298#msg70298

I am about to post an open-source project that fixes Pink Dots in C#

Good job!

So back to my question, what is being done about making ML a "real world" solution to RAW video?  And I don't mean new features.  I mean a plan and timeline to get to a stable version.

What's being done to make ML a real world solution to Arkanoid? I don't understand why everyone doesn't drop their own petty interests and focus on my vastly more important ones.

[maxotics]

What's being done to make ML a real world solution to Arkanoid? I don't understand why everyone doesn't drop their own petty interests and focus on my vastly more important ones.

Well, that's my question.  I don't believe anyone is being purposely petty.  Just like most people who loot during a black-out aren't typically thievish.  What I do believe, is that the current "culture" of ML is not conducive to productivity in a professional sense; that is, software delivered to the "customer" that can be depended upon to meet their requirement(s).  Yes, I know everyone works for free and it's not my right to say how ML should proceed.  I can only give my opinion.  And my opinion is that ML is not a real-world solution to RAW video and never will be until people gather around and

1. Create some sort of mission statement (goal)
2. Create some sort of organization (committee, board, working-group)
3. Work to create a supportive environment to both the lead devs and those who do dirty work.

Are there downsides to the above?  Yes.  I HATE committees.  We can't have a perfect world. 

I'd like to see a dev take the OP up on his offer.  Why, because it would show some VALUE back to the end-user! (I couldn't care less about that feature, btw).  Again, my opinion, is that ML is going to remain a card-trick curiosity until it starts working for the people who want to use this technology in THEIR way. 

[Andy600]

@maxotics - sorry but I think your frustration is unwarranted in the context of Magic Lantern as it is not a commercial business. It has always been about developers who have a personal interest in developing specific features that they, themselves want or need for their own use. Thier developments are then freely shared with the rest of us. AFAIK a1ex is himself, predominantly interested in stills photography yet he was instrumental in bringing raw video capability to the cameras.

Magic Lantern as a project has made huge strides recently. Look at the website, this forum, and the actual software. All done freely, by people who develop/contribute in their own free time.

You have also contributed your time and effort to helping others of course which is commendable and appreciated but the bottom line is that Canon has not endorsed nor is involved in this project and subsequently the ML team does not have full access to the workings of the hardware needed to fully maximize the potential of Magic Lantern.

Regarding the BMPCC. Yes, it is a camera developed for a purpose BUT - No in-camera formatting or even deleting of files,  On-going issues with sensor calibration, no actual raw capability (yet), poor support etc etc... the list goes on. I'm with Dave Dugdale on his suggestion - Magic Lantern should be beating down the door of Black Magic as, IMO, it could be a perfect marriage. But for now, we have something useable that is not intended to compete with custom, commercial solutions or businesses. It is only because of a few bloggers who have suggested that it is/or could that has stoked the fire. Development will continue and I'll hazard a guess that there is more interesting stuff to come to the platform but ML is basically a skunkworks and a committee will not work in that environment without seriously hindering development times.

Just my 2c

Personally, I hope you hang around even if you do go the BM route

[maxotics]

@maxotics - sorry but I think your frustration is unwarranted
Just my 2c

That's the problem with all my frustrations, they're all unwarranted   Seriously, thanks for your 2c!  I don't plan on leaving.   My point is only that ML is only going to reach, in my estimate 10% of it's actual potential as a real-world solution to film-maker's needs.  Does it really have anything to do with commercialism?  I'm not getting paid to do what I share with ML either.  But I'd like to see as many people get something good out of their EOS-M, for example, as possible.  Instead of working on code or shooting I spent time on that shooter's manual because that's what users need.  I don't like doing it, but I recognize that the more people who use the EOS-M, the more developers will work on it, so the irony many devs don't see is that going backwards often propels you forward.

ML is basically a skunkworks and a committee will not work in that environment without seriously hindering development times.

That's why most development efforts that seek larger audience do both.  There are trade-offs.  I do believe I am not alone in this.  There are many people who would rather have stability than new features.  What gets developed, and how fast, is a philosophical question.  What would you rather have, new features that bring on 2-5 people, or stability that brings in hundreds?  So I'd put this another way, focusing only on development hinders acceptance and low acceptance ends up with loneliness and failure   (if I may wax poetic).

I can shoot RAW on both my 50D and EOS-M.  What I can't do is point someone to a stable build, release notes and a thread of known bugs in the stable release.  There are people who can do it (if properly motivated), but we all need to recognize their effort.  And that brings us back to the OPs original post.  He offered $200 to make the camera more useful to film-makers like himself.  Most of what he got back was, again, in my book, woefully short-sighted.

For my part, I will do my best with the EOS-M.  I can only hope others follow my (and others like yourself) lead at some point.

[Marsu42]

ML is the Tragedy of the Commons.  ML is anything you want it to be... as long as you don't expect people to work together for a common goal.  Each dev works on what they want.  If you question them, others reprimand you.

I suggest you give a quote or link to give us an impression what you are talking about...

... because offhand I strongly disagree, apart from the regrettable ML/TL fork the general tone in the forum and on bitbucket is very nice, core devs just like modules devs help each other out and are considerate that this is all our spare time. Given the range of oss projects, I'd wager to say ML development is working beautifully which results in stunning features implemented across a very large range of different camera bodies in the last year.

There is NO PLAN or TIMELINE I can see, to make ML RAW stable.

I agree about the lack of timeline for a general ML 3.0 stable release, I mentioned this more than one time, the current nightly rolling release approach won't make everyone happy... setting some milestones for a ML 3.0 release would be in order.

But what is "stable" like for raw? If this means as little bugs as possible, you don't reach it by urging the devs to work together, but by as many people as possible using a beta version and reporting bugs in an efficient way. As far as I see this is what is happening right now, given the scope of this innovation and postprocessing workflow attached a final version won't appear out of thin air overnight.

Money irritates many here because with money comes responsibility.

I wouldn't want to comment why offering money generates diverse reactions, but my observation is that in the oss world this is the case almost every time (see Debian vs. Ubuntu) and the way this specific offer is handled here is very considerate - some people voice their opinion, but nobody started flaming about the offer and any dev is free to take it w/o a problem.

[maxotics]

@Marsu42.  All your comments are valid.  Net-net, I think we'd like to see the same outcome.

[Datadogie]

Next you will be asking the devs to make a camera with all the functions I want. No we want. There is only so much the devs can do and as the get to the top of the hill there are less things that they can discover as they have discovered most if not all that these cameras can do. We should be donating to them for the things they have discovered. If there is more to come I am sure they will discover in their own time as they also have their lives to live. ie go out and take photos and video for themselves.

[mva]

As everyone here knows, lots of people are excited about the raw capabilities ML has unleashed for the Canon cameras. In the case of the 5D3, given that almost 40,000 people have seen a single video about installing ML raw on the 5d3 (Dave Dugdale's), it's safe to say that, all in all, at least many tens of thousands of people are interested in ML raw for the 5D3.

The bootflag issue is one that concerns many if not most of those people, even many who feel they can live with it indefinitely. There's no getting around that it can affect anyone wanting to resell their 5D3: Such a person will have to either lie and hope the buyer doesn't want to use Eye-Fi cards or care about a having a normal fast wake-up in which case they may come back angry as hell, or if the seller finds someone willing to buy a 5D3 with a non-resettable bootflag (and delay, no Eye-Fi, etc.), there's a good chance they'll have to knock the price down $100 or more to sell a camera that doesn't function normally. (Which is one good reason to instead pledge $20 or $30 etc. toward our offer! ) I think it's also safe to say that thousands of 5D3 owners who’ve heard about ML raw and would love to try it out on their 5d3s will not be willing to so long as ML makes changes to the camera's normal functioning that can’t be reversed.

So although it's true that I'm interested in having "my issue attended to" (the bootflag), it's far from a "petty issue," and it doesn't mean that I'm not equally or even more interested in helping these other thousands of 5D3 owners also enjoy more quickly, more easily, and with more options, wonderful raw on the 5d3. And if, in addition, A1ex or any other dev can take up this offer and from their perspective come out ahead, that would be great too!

I hope some other people will start adding, even small amounts, to the $300 we have on offer so far.

[maxotics]

... and b) to get to know why this is working on digic4-based cameras but not on 5d3/6d: If it's not for the lack of trying

How many devs have enough knowledge/experience to weigh in on this issue?  From my end, I can only see A1ex, 1% and g3gg0.  Alex seems to be taking a break (a very, very serious development IMHO).  g3gg0 seems dedicated to MLV.  Then there is 1%.  Who else has a reasonable chance of fixing this?  I don't follow the 5D3, so sorry if I don't know who the other devs are.

[dmilligan]

How many devs have enough knowledge/experience to weigh in on this issue?  From my end, I can only see A1ex, 1% and g3gg0.  Alex seems to be taking a break (a very, very serious development IMHO).  g3gg0 seems dedicated to MLV.  Then there is 1%.  Who else has a reasonable chance of fixing this?  I don't follow the 5D3, so sorry if I don't know who the other devs are.

here's a list of ML contributors sorted by most commits

Code: [Select]

zeus:magic-lantern david$ hg log --template "{author|person}\n" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
3462 alex
2629 a1ex
 570 g3gg0
 430 hudson
 313 Giovanni Condello
 231 nanomad
 178 scrax
 173 miyake_t
 146 Trammell Hudson
 144 Coutts
 106 pravdomil
  86 Giovanni C
  74 Antony Pavlov
  67 jplxpto
  39 Zsolt Sz. Sztupak
  31 Pelican
  30 Pawel Pluciennik
  29 Marsu42
  28 Nanomad
  26 meeok
  24 GregoryO
  22 Audionut
  20 [0xAF]
  19 marekk17
  16 Sticks
  16 Gr3g01
  15 cbob
  15 David Milligan
  13 ubbut
  10 indiana arm
  10 TheUnkn0wn
  10 Mathew Kelly
  10 Jarno Paananen
   9 Rob Kramer
   8 minimimi
   7 w01f <w01f>
   7 coutts
   7 Sven Killig
   6 ppluciennik
   5 1p
   4 sonic74
   4 mini mimi
   4 escho
   4 Roald Frederickx
   4 Diego Elio Pettenò
   3 sc1ence
   3 dmilligan
   3 Edgar Scholz
   2 theunkn0wn
   2 sodapopodalaigh <sodapopodalaigh>
   2 leigh_tuck <leigh_tuck>
   2 housebox
   2 dlrpgmsvc
   2 Takashi Miyake
   2 Piers Goodhew
   2 Márton M
   2 Michael Angle
   2 C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\The Bat! Pwd
   2 600Dplus
   1 v8rrc
   1 swinxx reno
   1 rufustfirefly
   1 niklasRde
   1 hipescho
   1 a_d_
   1 [0xAF] Stanislav Lechev
   1 YMP
   1 Vincent Olivier
   1 Thomas Saunders
   1 Stanislav [0xAF] Lechev
   1 Stanislav Lechev
   1 Simon Dibbern
   1 Miguel Brito
   1 David Hessel <bnvm>
   1 Chris Ball


[maxotics]

here's a list of ML contributors sorted by most commits...

Thanks very much for taking the time to post the list.  Is A1ex and Alex the same person?  If so, then his taking a break is going to be felt!  I take it 1% isn't on list because he is running separate fork (another issue I know).  Am I totally off-base in thinking ML dev may slow down to a crawl without Alex?

[5D3shooter]

Compare this post... http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=7125.msg87502#msg87502  to all the happy people using and accepting it in this post http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=2602.0

Still think it's a lot of people? Don't be a whinner.

You know, there are probably a lot of people out there that are using the nightly builds that don't post on the forum.  Like mva said, there are 10s of thousands of views on ML RAW tutorial videos, you think we just all watched it over and over again?

But anyway, it's easy to rationalize why it's acceptable considering the benefits that overshadow the consequences.  I was one of those rationalizers.  You can see my post where I was telling some people that they were making a big deal about nothing, and that the benefits are worth it—rationalizing.  But then I started to think more about it, and changed my mind.  This is like getting a tattoo, it's permanent.  That's a big commitment to make, and I really would like the ability to remove it if I wish. 

I'm not asking for a stable version with no bugs, just a simple uninstaller.  It brings comfort to know that it's removable, unlike the fellow who tattooed his x-gf's name across his chest.  Sorry for the dumb analogy, but so far this boot flag is a permanent modification.

The money I offered is just an incentive, they don't have to take me up on it and no one is going to force them.  I know this is open source, but like others have mentioned only a few have the knowledge to address this issue, and I want them to think about it a little bit more and possibly come to a solution, sooner than later.  I will happily extend the deadline if Alex is going to be gone a while.  I don't want it to seem like I'm saying "DO THIS, NOW!!"  I simply just want it to stop being put off month after month, like its been.

[Marsu42]

Am I totally off-base in thinking ML dev may slow down to a crawl without Alex?

Yes, you are - that's why I asked him not to get hit by a bus while on vacation :->

I don't think people not looking at the commits or this forum realize how much hinges on him - next to g3gg0 who does great low-level and reverse engineering alex is the one person who implements all the ideas, and this is a very professional manner and great code quality.