Our first Bounty Programme was launched some months ago with the aim to engage external contributors in the development of the FIWARE Open Source technologies. The Programme also focus on enlarging the Community, by encouraging and rewarding developers and researchers, eager to take part and to help making FIWARE online environment more secure, improving the performance and quality of the Platform.

In a recent interview, José Manuel Cantera, Technological Expert with Telefónica and responsible for the FIWARE Bounty Programme, reviewed the main outcomes and prospects of the Programme after its opening results: “This is the first edition and our aspiration is to keep it permanently open”. Initially the tasks were divided in two groups: temporary and permanent bounties. Now the works around the Programme intend to be continuous, reaching and gaining new collaborators while engaging the already awarded contributors to participate again, finding and solving more issues.

“The Bounty Programme needs the cooperation of the FIWARE projects, so that they are prepared to accept contributions coming from developers which are not in their core team. Furthermore, they should increase the level of transparency and openness, providing information about what tasks are suitable for being developed by an external contributor” –explained Cantera, emphasizing the role of the Bounty Programme in the enlargement of the FIWARE developers’ global team–. “Core team members should be willing to help non experienced contributors. That way a greater community will be gradually created.”

Now, the Bounty Programme announces some attractive changes around how it would be rewarding contributions. Now, every time someone solves a defined task, the prize money would increase! Here is how it works:

• When a contributor has successfully completed his or her first task, the contributor will get the amount listed for that task.
• After that first completed task, if the contributor comes back and solves a different task, he or she will get twice the amount earmarked for that task.
• After that second completed task, if the contributor comes back and solves a different task, he or she will get three times the amount earmarked for that task.
• Any subsequent task completions will be capped at three times the amount earmarked for that task.

To know more about the different tasks available, check out the Bounty Shortlist.

Asked about if there are areas or tasks that should receive more attention, now that the Bounty Programme keeps progressing, Jose Manuel Cantera points out two: “One area on which I would like to see improvement is on code contributions to FIWARE Generic Enablers. To this aim we have created (already in a draft state) the guide for contributors. Another area with great potential for external contributions are tutorials, blog posts and presentations. FIWARE technologies need more dissemination work and I think the community has to play an important role in this regard.”

The Bounty Programme is on and it could be your opportunity to take part in the advancement of FIWARE, to be recognized and be paid for it. Join in, apply now!