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A2
I don't understand what you are suggesting, or what this provides, can you explain?
Sure. Basically, Bountysource provides a way (one of many many different ways) to pay people for contributing to an Open Source project. It introduces money into a project, so depending on your point of view it might be a great thing or a terrible thing. It is up to the project leader to decide if it is right for them or not. (Disclaimer - I am not affiliated with BountySource or GitHub. Sorry if this whole thing sounds like a sales pitch.)
Bountysource is pretty well integrated with GitHub. You can see the Bountysource pages of some RepRap-related projects here:
Slic3r
Kintel Marlin
Traumflug Teacup Firmware
If (hypothetically) ConceptFORGE was on BountySource, people could raise issues (and feature requests) and open bounties on things that were important to them. Also, if a person was working on something, they could raise an issue and ask others to contribute money to a bounty on that issue. There is a worked-out example of this process on the wiki page that bobc set up.
So, a couple examples relevant to the current thread:
Nicholas could open issues (or feature requests) in GitHub related to what he is currently working on. He could let people know what he thinks is important, and if people wanted to support the work, they could contribute money to bounties associated to those issues/features. When the work is publised (on GitHub, RepRap Wiki, anywhere with suitable Open Source credibility) Nicholas gets the money.
Another (hypothetical) example: Suppose I'm fixated on self-replicating machines. I'm super excited about BOB Simpson (BOltless and Bearingless Simpson) but I don't have time to work on it myself and I know it's very far down on Nicholas's priority list. Let's imagine I get super super excited and I open a bounty on ConceptFORGE for "a maintenance-free Double Lamina Compliant Joint or equivalent, for use in a BOB Simpson". The idea is that the bounty will give some developer incentive to work on it. When it is done the developer publishes the design with an open source license, everyone gets to use it, the developer gets the money, everyone is happy.
That's the idea anyway. Everyone is supposed to get happy... :)
