High Fidelity Using Social Work Platform to Help Build the Future of Social VR

High Fidelity is already coming out with some interesting features for its upcoming open source social VR platform, but one of the more noteworthy features is how it's being developed -- on a social task bidding platform called Worklist:

High Fidelity is an open source virtual world platform. We are building the software with a mix of full-time developers, part time developers who are paid here on the worklist, and open source collaborators. As use of the virtual world grows, Worklist will also host paid projects run by other teams.

High Fidelity the startup company lists projects it needs developed on Worklist, and third party developers bid on taking the assignment.

Founder Philip Rosedale estimates 5-10% of High Fidelity's total codebase has been built this way: "942 jobs so far, about $250K that people have earned," he says. "Average job about $250. Probably about 100 people in the community of overall developers so far."

$250K is roughly the annual salary of two Bay Area-based mid-level developers, so this seems like a pretty cost-effective alternative. But the real motivation, Philip tells me, is the open source nature of HiFi:

"The choice to do open source drives the whole thing, because it puts the code in the open so that others can work on it.  This opens up two opportunities outside of salaried engineers:  First, as with all open source projects, unpaid submissions can be made by developers from all over who want to get their work pulled into the 'main' codebase, and we've done lots of that.  But the second opportunity is that with open source code, you can much more efficiently use part-time or contract labor, because the code and process for integration is public."  

With that realization in mind, the Worklist was born:

"We figured that if we built something like Worklist, it would let us take that as far as possible and try to outsource everything that wasn't 'core' engineering and R&D.  You really only need to have people sitting in the same room when you are doing the kernel work that requires deepest collaboration.   The rest it makes  more sense to distribute the work as widely as possible.  So that is where we are heading and it is already working well."

Fellow Linden Lab vet Chris Collins, by the way, manages the Worklist (which handled on a day to day basis by HiFi team member Melissa Brown): "[It's] tightly integrated with Github, making it very easy for a developer to have their own version of the code to work on with just a couple of clicks," he tells me. "The types of jobs that go through Worklist are C++, JavaScript, 3d content production, graphics and QA work."

And if you're wondering if other companies could use something like this, they may get that chance soon:

"[W]e'd like to make it available for other projects that want to use it to build things on High Fidelity," Philip Rosedale says. "We have a way to create a 'budget' for a team, and then allow jobs to be paid from that budget."

Personally I could see the Worklist possibly becoming even more successful than High Fidelity itself -- in the same way that Stewart Butterfield and team built the basis of Slack as a tool for them to create a virtual world... only to see Slack become a success after the virtual world they'd built closed up.

Comments

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Sometimes the things that succeed are not the things you expected to work. I won't lie though - I still miss Glitch.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Cost effective. Great for the job market though, eh? Meanwhile other companies actually pay employees, with benefits, vacation, etc.

Phil has been at this forever from his time at LL, to a failed Coffee and Power to today.

More power to him, in a free market. But this amateur do-it-on-the-cheap approach is also what keeps something like High Fidelity from ever having a polished product like other engines in the market.

Simply compare finished products and client lists to others in the field. SL did actually have an impressive client list once upon a time. It failed to retain them precisely because this tact doesn't produce a professional end product that professionals require.

I hate that I sound like I'm always bashing, but sheesh. Stop dinking around and put on the big boy business pants.

[Wagner J Au]

Yeah would be great if SL had one of these!

It's not just that it's hard for startups to pay $250K to hire two devs, it's also tough for devs to even afford the Bay Area at $125K a year. A lot of them would prefer making a great living coding from a $20 beach bungalow with wi-fi on a Thai island instead.

[Tizzy Canucci]

"Cost effective. Great for the job market though, eh? Meanwhile other companies actually pay employees, with benefits, vacation, etc." My thought exactly, Dartagan.

Open source should be a matter of principle and ethics, not a way of avoiding paying for stuff that you are going to make a profit out of indirectly down the line.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

@Hamlet: There is that, I forgot how crazy costs there can be. Serves you right for being on the left coast. Funny, the other day I saw a local job offer for lead dev for a bank for security offering $30k. I think you guys can buy donuts for $30k.

@Tizzy: Agreed, too much exploitation of open source that is of no use to anyone but the company producing the product.

[Joey1058]

Cool concept. I do'nt know if they've done this before, but it makes good sense!