I was not making a complete list of all possible ways to contribute (there are a lot more then), just giving the alternatives in my opinion for chipin/financial contribution.<div><br></div><div>I prefer that the module maintainer writes the code instead of myself or somebody that works for me because</div>
<div><ul><li>I think paying the module maintainer gives her the opportunity to make a living of Drupal modules and thus having the freedom to spend more time on the module, improving the quality of that module, implement faster improvements and make it better for everyone. Such a module will not get abandoned.</li>
<li>I also think that the module maintainer knows her module best (or should) so will not have to waste time to digg into the code just to understand how the module works before being able to start adding the feature. So we save time.</li>
<li>If you make yourself or let somebody else make a patch and contribute it it is not sure that it will finally get incorporated into the module code, the module maintainer will decide on that, and when she had started developing a similar feature in another way, you will be left with an ugly patch that makes updates harder.</li>
<li>Letting other people write an extra feature often gives you code which is too custom to be contributed, its often an easy fix that is specific for your installation; I rather prefer that the maintainer makes a generic solution that will get included in the next update of the module.</li>
</ul><div>And I&#39;m confident enough in the enthousiasm of most maintainers that we will not get into a future situation where all modules would get stuck on a chipin, and nothing would be done anymore before the amount is reached. Its not about free/paid, but about liking what you do.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Hans</div><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/1/15 Brian Kennedy <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:brianpkennedy@gmail.com">brianpkennedy@gmail.com</a>&gt;</span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="Ih2E3d">On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 1:12 AM, KOBA | Hans Rossel <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:hans.rossel@koba.be" target="_blank">hans.rossel@koba.be</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">
<span style="border-collapse:collapse">I&#39;ve contributed a few times to a chipin, but like rather to contribute and communicate directly with&nbsp;the maintainer for certain specific features.&nbsp;<div>
<br></div><div>I think there are 3 main ways:</div><div>- chipin: for popular much wanted features, a lot of people contributing a small amount.&nbsp;</div><div>- bounty: gathering a few sponsors that contribute a larger amount for a specific feature</div>


<div>- direct contact with the maintainer: for urgent needs or really custom changes to the module for a specific project.<br><div></div></div></span></blockquote></div><div><br><br>You seem to have left out the 4th way -- which is digging in and and writing some code yourself. If there&#39;s a feature that you&#39;re willing to pay someone else for, why can&#39;t you do it yourself (whether that means writing your own code, or if you&#39;re a PM having someone who works for you write the code)? After you write implement the feature yourself, you can contribute that code back in the form of a patch and the maintainer can apply that him/herself. One of the benefits of open source is that the source is open. <br>

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