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There is a bug in Ubuntu that has been bugging me for quite a while -- and it has been bugging others for years.

I'm pretty sure a substantial amount of money could be raised to pay to get the bug fixed but but don't know the best way of doing this.

Is there an existing system to fund an "Ubuntu Bug Fix Bounty"? If not, has anything remotely like this been done? If so, how?

Note: This is not a question about how to report bugs. It is a question that recognizes the existing triage policies of Canonical and others may not adequately serve some users.

James Bowery
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    I don't think there is a system like that. You can report the bug in Launchpad. What is the bug, though? Edit: This one? https://askubuntu.com/questions/1349010/is-there-some-way-to-disable-volume-normalization-or-automatic-volume-levelin Did you check if the bug is present in other Ubuntu flavors (e.g. Xubuntu) or in other operating systems (e.g. Mint)? – Archisman Panigrahi Aug 23 '21 at 17:49
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    Does this answer your question? How do I report a bug? – Nmath Aug 23 '21 at 18:28
  • You can share the details (or any pointers) of the bug that is "bugging" you by [edit]ing your question, so we can understand the nature of the bug. – FedKad Aug 23 '21 at 18:39
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    You can report the bug (man ubuntu-bug), you can post a question on AskUbuntu, you can download the source, fix the bug, and contribute the patch, you can rent a consultant to do it for you. – waltinator Aug 23 '21 at 19:58
  • Ubuntu-MATE have done such things using donated money. To encourage devs to work on specific issues they were aware of, they offered $ amounts to get solutions (they raised funds to pay for hardware used to creat Ubuntu-MATE which wasn't an official flavor at the time, so was done on wimpy's equipment, they got more $s than they needed thus the payouts for fixes). I recall hearing Martin Wimpress talking about it on podcasts, though it was years ago (2015-2017 maybe, but so long ago my details are hazy sorry. Ubuntu MATE is now an official flavor – guiverc Aug 23 '21 at 22:52
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    Without a link to a bug report, you're asking us to speculate needlessly. Maybe it belongs upstream. Maybe one of the third-party bounty sites will take it. Maybe it's already fixed in a newer release of Ubuntu. Lots of maybes. – user535733 Aug 23 '21 at 23:18
  • This question will probably be closed as a duplicate. But even if it is not, I would vote to close it as seeking an "opinion based" answer. – user68186 Aug 24 '21 at 19:38
  • Agreed it may be "opinion based" but then where does one ask such questions? – James Bowery Aug 24 '21 at 19:53
  • Ubuntu Forums (https://ubuntuforums.org/) allow such questions, as discussions are the purpose of forums (this is a Q&A site) – guiverc Aug 24 '21 at 21:40

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There is no 'bug bounty' system in Ubuntu, and setting up such a system would be a Canonical driven thing. However, most of the software in Ubuntu is not actually fixable in Ubuntu without first being fixed or addressed upstream, which means you should really be paying the developers for the software that the bug is in to fix things, not Ubuntu. Most if not all fixes for bugs in Ubuntu originate at the upstream projects, not within Ubuntu itself.

Thomas Ward
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    I'm not sure how Canonical's triage system works but I would guess that there are quite a few bug reports coming into Ubuntu that aren't Ubuntu bugs for the reason you cite. The burden of taking such misplaced bug reports and refiling them isn't something that should be placed on the backs of mere users of the preexisting software provided by Ubuntu. The bounty would simply say, "Look, I don't know what's going on here, but a bunch of Ubuntu users are having the same problem. Figure it out, fix it and when the pull is accepted wherever it goes, get the bounty." – James Bowery Aug 24 '21 at 19:33