This idea popped up in a completely different conversation and I haven’t explored the full dynamics of the idea and how it would play out legally but:
What if Ubuntu users paid into an insurance fund. The fund’s aim would be to record the primary software and hardware used by the customer and to employ programmers and QA people to ensure that this software and hardware works in the next release and with critical updates?
This would be in contrast to the idea of paying individually for bugs to be fixed. Such as having bounties or pay only bug trackers.
The goal of course would be to collectively take responsibility for maintaining the code we have that makes our computers do amazing things. Make sure that this is sustainable and reduce the requirement for guides and “toxic workarounds” for sets of problems that crop up in releases.
Would you pay into such a scheme? Do you know users who would? Is there enough money in our ecosystem to really pay people to do a good job on fixing problems or are we just not big enough yet?
What are your thoughts?