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codemill.io

6 pointsshaharsol13 comments

An interesting idea. It looks like there is a point in time at which the developer has produced and delivered code but has not been paid.

What steps does the platform take to prevent developers from getting stiffed?

Yes, there is this point at time between the pull request and the merge. We didn't build any engine to support a possible negligence by the client who sponsors the work. However we do believe that clients won't just "submit" work orders and then ignore them.

All this can be built after the service has a lot of users.

Because Github allows pull requests to be reviewed prior to merging, what protects the developer from someone just using their work without paying? It seems that the platform pushes all the financial risk on the developer.

This is true also outside of the platform and in any business whatsoever. The payee is always at risk of not being paid. That said I believe this system will overall prove to reduce risk for developers and increase overall collecting ratio. The tasks that are being dealt here are meant to be small and specific. Not full scale projects. And once a merge happens, the payment is immediate. Also, a developer that uses this system heavily will have a never ending pipeline of work and won't be required to do marketing and customer care anymore, so all in all, their monthly income will increase.

Just to be clear that the payee is not always at risk, I am in the habit of requiring retainers applicable against final invoice, i.e. the risk rides with the payer not the payee. In other words my clients are typically vetted by requiring them to write a check and pay for the work I do not "only if they like it".

Anyway, I expect that the problem this is meant to solve is more likely to be driven by the supply side than the demand side...there's an unending line of people who want better free software and a shortage of people who are capable of delivering it with quality.

On the other hand, if the platform backs up developers against non-payment, then there is an alignment of interests toward screening for good customers. It would also put some money behind the assumption that the payees are going to tend to be good actors.

This tagline isn't making justice to this awesome idea (I had a very similar idea some time ago, so I will say this)!

I hope people start using it. Also, I want the answers for brudger's questions too.

What would be a better tagline in your opinion?

I don't know, it's just an impression I had. But I'm not even a native English speaker so I'm probably wrong.

I'm having trouble to open a task. What exactly should I do after opening an issue on GitHub? I don't see any special tags on the repo I added to CodeMill.

you need to add a textual string in the format "codemill${price}" to the issue body. Or as a comment to the issue.

If by accident you've opened the issue before applying CodeMill to the repo, or added the codemill$price tag in an edit action (github doesn't fire webhooks on edit issues) then please simply add a new comment to the issue with the codemill$price tag and it will work

Right, I missed this magic string behavior, and after I had a problem with the edit thing, but now I finally made it. I'm a cheapo.

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