Towards understanding an open-source bounty: Analysis of Bountysource

Abstract

When developing and maintaining a software project, many issues about bug fixing or feature addition are reported on the Bug Tracking System (BTS) and the Issue Tracking System (ITS). Bountysource is a web founding platform that awards developers who have solved issues on the BTS/ITS. Users can post a bounty for the issues, and a developer who solves the issue can get that bounty. This research analyzes Bountysource to clarify how bounties act in open source software projects and discusses further research topics in open-source bounties.