[kmort]

My thoughts about a collective have included a bidding system. For each project, the coordinating team identify the work units. For each work unit, the collective's members may submit a bid comprising of:

* time available to work on project (start date, commitment, etc.)

* time estimates

* profit-sharing margin

The project coordinators choose a best fit.

All assets created by the collective are added to a common pool and may be used in a bid by another member for a different project with the original creator getting a cut of that project's profit.

[jules]

That's an awesome idea, using a kind of market to decide the price/profit. You need some kind of reputation to make this work, you don't want any fool bidding and then not doing the work.

[kmort]

It's a design I've been tinkering with for while and have a bunch of notes about. Reputation would be handled by a transparent history of all projects worked on.

The profit-sharing design does not prevent collusion. E.g., if there are a glut of programmers and a shortage of artists in the collective, then two may collude to submit and share a low programmer bid and a high artist bid (and vice versa on another project).

Collectives are hard and are subject to many problems that the free market does not suffer.