Sunday, August 02, 2009

Dear TPF - don't send money, send thank you letters

I have already commented at the Proposed Payments for Clearing Perl 5 Bugs blog post from The Perl Foundation - but now I think I have an even better idea. I am now unemployed, maybe I could try this bug hunting as a way to get some income during these hard times, but the money, that is most probably at stake, could hardly solve any problem for me. Still there is one thing that could have much impact on my situation - I am sure you already know what I have on mind - a printed thank you letter from The Perl Foundation that I could take with me to the interviews. This would not cost much, even for something printed on a nice paper - but it could have a great impact on peoples careers.

Even if the money rewards are already something decided - and no change can be made - TPF could at least accompany them with such a thank you letter. And there should be a way to make it signed by Larry Wall himself - this is crucial for the impressiveness factor.

5 comments:

Dan Dascalescu said...

Nice idea actually, especially if Perl bug reporters get a letter too ;)

James Mastros (theorbtwo) said...

Having this as an option would be cool, but *as an option* is, I think, an important part. I'd love a thank-you letter signed by Larry... but once I have one of those, that shouldn't really be *it*, it doesn't give people a reason to do more of it. After all, are two identical signed thank-you notes from Larry any better then one?
Also note that Larry has a job, and it's not with TPF.

John Monteiro said...

I would rather have the money. Bills need to be paid and a thank you letter doesn't pay them.

Anonymous said...

Along these line how about a Linked-In group that says you are on the team that fixes Perl5 bugs. Fix five bugs, you get membership to the bronze group. Fix 25, get membership to the Silver group. Fix 75 get membership to the gold group. Fix 100, get membership to the Larry group.

Anonymous said...

Certainly there can't be over 100 bugs in any version of Perl.