Show HN: Algora – Open source coding bounties (console.algora.io)
1 min demo: https://twitter.com/algoraio/status/1641560954746839042
The context: contributing to open source helps developers gain experience, grow their networks & land jobs while helping maintainers ship product updates and push their projects forward for the whole community
The problem: there's too much work to be done in open source and not enough people contributing. Introducing payments can make contributing more accessible & benefit both sides, however today paid open source is scarce, low trust & high friction
Our solution: we built an app that streamlines open source bounties on Github
To date, OSS projects on the plaftorm have awarded $65,785 (600 bounties) to 188 contributors from 48 countries
Right now, 43 OSS projects (mainly Typescript, Rust & Scala) have made 242 bounties ($46,899) available to solve
To create bounties in your project, simply register, install our app in your repo(s) and use the /bounty command on issues
To solve bounties, submit a PR including the /claim command & connect with Stripe/Alipay to receive payouts
We also started a COSS founder podcast to share lessons & advice for building open source companies: https://youtube.com/@algora-io
We think it's now a great time to welcome new contributors & maintainers on the Algora platform - happy Hacktoberfest!
We are really excited to hear your feedback/questions and connect further: our emails are ioannis@algora.io & zafer@algora.io
Thank you!
38 comments
[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadCongrats on all the progress!
Is there a limit to how low you can go? The lowest bounty I saw was $15.
TLDR we really enjoy Algora!
### Things to be aware of
- if you practice linear commit history then it is important to provide clear guidelines for that in your instructions on the issue
- you should go into it with your own rules on how you will handle competing bounty solutions. Are you going to take the better one or the first?
- frequently you will need to cleanup bounty PRs. I.e. change from inline styles to tailwind, use middleware instead of inline controls on functions, etc.
- It is much easier to get bounty hunters when your project uses beginner friendly pieces like React/Astro. We have a lot of regret for going with SolidJS.
### Weaknesses
- I wish there was a way to boost the bounty for contributors that I know had already gotten the project to run locally. Some multiplier for them would be really nice.
- Similarly, I want to put a multiplier on a series of issues in a chain. So the first one is at 1x then second 1.5x, etc.
- 9% fee is pretty brutal on the bounties
- Cannot pay bounty hunters in crypto
- There are a lot of Rust projects listed, but I still feel the hunters we worked with were not strong Rust programmers
### Strengths
- the spend is getting work done and also marketing to some extent as the Algora bounty page will direct traffic to your Github and landing page
- response times to bounties are incredibly fast
- Bounty hunters are global so work can get done on your repo 24/7
Can you say more on this?
> I wish there was a way to boost the bounty for contributors that I know had already gotten the project to run locally. Some multiplier for them would be really nice.
You can use the /tip command to pay contributors extra if you are pleased with their work.
> There are a lot of Rust projects listed, but I still feel the hunters we worked with were not strong Rust programmers
What was the average bounty amount on offer? Was it lower than $100? IME, low bounties tend to attract those looking to make a quick buck versus those who would like to stick around. I tend seek out contributions where the amount on offer is higher but usually this will mean a longer time committment on my part. I'm not a fan of being the first to submit a PR. I'd rather ask prodding questions to make sure we are on the same page before writing any line of code.
React is much more ubiquitous and it seems like far more bounty hunters are proficient in it than newer and more cumbersome tools like Solid.
> /tip
Saying "we will tip you when you finish if you are X person" doesn't feel too great. The hunter has no guarantee they will get the tip, but also it's just a bad look on the issue. We would much rather have it built into the protocol. Generally we also want the gamification because we just think it's a nice way of boosting engagement.
> bounty amount for Rust
We had one at $200, but the rest were under $100 I believe. It's difficult beacuse "Rust" does not necessarily mean the issue is more difficult. Paying $100 for a 10 line PR just beacause it's in Rust doesn't feel great.
the in-app dashboard does the same based on your github profile
I look forward to putting out many more bounties on Algora.
Edit: here's the link to our Algora page https://console.algora.io/org/teamhanko
Quick suggestion: Separate bounties with a "claim" active from the search for "Open Bounties".
I spent last 15 minutes reading through the bounty and thread only to get to the end and see a claim was already initiated 4 days ago.
and sorry about that, can you send me a link to the bounty? the list on the homepage should already be sorted by availability
Looking again at it, it seems like maybe you are trying to show there is a claim on it by having a profile picture off to the right of it of the person with the PR active? But I have no idea how anyone would infer that readily.
1. We get OSS contributors incentivized to work on the features that we want to prioritize.
2. It acts as a great hiring funnel.
Congrats on the launch.
btw you have the most beautiful docs i've ever seen https://www.highlight.io/docs/getting-started/client-sdk/rea...
Great product!
https://github.com/triggerdotdev/trigger.dev/issues/249
Amazing both as a repo owner, but also as someone who has urgent issues in other repos.
The fact that you can add bounties to any issue on github is spectacular.
these 'community bounties' are now by default shared privately with the maintainers only, and maintainers can decide to complete the bounties themselves, share them with the contributors, or discard them. That way community bounties are never intrusive to maintainers' time, roadmap & governance while also acting as a sponsorship if accepted
I like how bounties added by different people get pooled on the same issue!
[1] https://github.com/drifting-in-space/y-sweet/
Show HN: Algora – Paid open-source contributions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35412226 - April 2023 (70 comments)
I don't see how it's a dupe per the HN guidelines. could you please revise?
From the FAQ: reposts are considered dupes if the story has had significant attention in the last year or so - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
From the Show HN guidelines: feature upgrades are generally not sufficient for a new Show HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
Of course there's some grey area here (what counts as an incremental upgrade) but I think 6 months is too soon for this post. Sorry to disappoint, but users email us to complain about these things.
Oh and none of this is meant to imply that you aren't doing great work!