Community driven changes

What are the chances that the community could request, then pledge funds for enhancements that would benefit Dolphin 7 in general and be accepted into the code base?

Are you referring to a bounty system?

Yes

I'm aware of many open source projects having a bounty system to entice developers to work on certain features or applications for a certain amount of money. I also recall that CodeWeavers has a pledge system in their compatibility center where you can pledge x amount of money for an application to be better supported.

Are you recommending we pay BoonEx extra money for certain features to be added/extended? If so, I'd be interested in seeing how that would work.

Kind of...

My number one concern is if this where to 'take off' Boonex would stop, or reduce there own investment into the code base. Why should they pay developers if the users will do it for them?

I think idealy bounties would be coded by third parties and accepted by Boonex assuming the bug fix, enhancement, or new module meets the needs of the over all community without limiting a minority of the community and meets required coding standards.

I also wonder if any members who have provided free mods would be willing to 'donate' them to the main code base. I think there are many candidates for that that would only need an option added to the admin interface (and the required setting check code in the mod). Promo block, first login, hide member menue, tiny mce image upload, php blocks, and manny others I can't think of off the top of my head.

My hope is not only to get new features (or expiated bug fixes) but to also ease upgrading by having these common fixes and enhancements as part of the code base.