Ask HN: Incentivizing open source with VCG mechanism?
As we all know, there's is a an incentivazation problem with open source software. People who build OOS can generate enormous value for companies and products but often fail to capture any of that value for themselves. If they do get a compensation for their work, its indirect in the form of: freemium model, payed support, etc.
Let's take Python as an example of such a project. Python is widely used and is a very valuable project to many people though its contributors are volunteers that do not get direct compensation for their work. Python has a PIP (Python Improvement Proposal) mechanism used to decide which direction to take with the project.
What if people who use python could input their opinion to choose which PIPs got accepted in the form of a dollar valuation for each option (how much is it worth to you if it got accepted and how much if it got rejected)? Then we could implement VGC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey%E2%80%93Clarke%E2%80%93Groves_mechanism) to choose the optimal outcome, collecting prices from each participant for his bid. Those collected prices could then be used to incentivize the contributors.
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