[jlaswell]

Maybe I'm missing the point of your argument here, but doesn't the maintainer of a project has an intrinsic right to manage the project in his or her own way? They are the gatekeepers to their own projects contributions.

And while I completely agree with your point that the project code can be seen as everyone's, how does some third party have the right to define how someone manages his or her own gate?

I'm looking at it more as, it's the maintainer's right to manage the project and it's issues as he or she sees fit. I can see how the maintainer doesn't have the right to manage the code outside of the repo, but telling someone how to manage their own repo...

[jordigh]

> They are the gatekeepers to their own projects contributions

The point that bountysource is making is that the contributions don't always necessarily go to the project. There are individual drive-by bounty hunters who are unaffiliated with the project. I don't see a reason to discourage that, and I don't see a reason to pressure the project into accepting these drive-by bounty hunters either. I don't think anyone else is, either.

[dllthomas]

They are the gatekeepers to their own project's contributions, but one way to look at it is that the result of a bounty is a potential contribution available to their project but also available to anyone who wants to fork (either publicly or privately) which makes the new project their code (in the sense that is relevant here - control over content of the code base).