A few days ago, fellow blogger and active /talk member Reprep posted about the PS Vita Homebrew Bounty, an initiative where members of the PS Vita scene pledge to donate any amount they choose, to the first dev or group of devs who will provide native homebrew access to the Vita.

The article generated a bit of controversy so I feel I need to clarify my point of view here:

This initiative is not officially driven, or supported by wololo.net. Precisely, what this means is that if anything goes wrong with this initiative, I won’t try to fix the mess. However I am still legally responsible for what happens on my website of course, and again if I feel this bounty could jeopardize the future of this site in any way, I’ll close the thread.

Now, just because the site doesn’t officially drive this bounty, doesn’t mean that I am against it, on the contrary. I have pledged $200 to this bounty so far, and I intend to increase my pledge with time. As a matter of fact, the amount of my pledge is the only amount I can actually personally guarantee. Read the fine prints: people who pledge are just promising to donate the money. The money is not in any centralized place where I can guarantee it will actually reach the hackers.

That lack of guarantee is the main problem that got surfaced to me. Why do we claim there’s $2000 waiting for hackers in case of a release, if we can’t even guarantee this amount will ever reach their pockets?

Well, that’s the exact risk with such an initiative. We either take the money from the donators pockets in order to centralize it (the risk is on the donators side), or we just “hope” that they will actually donate when the time comes (the risk is on the devs side).

It’s one or the other, and there’s no easy middle ground. People have suggested to go through third party donation systems, or guarantees such as escrow.com, but let me state this once again: I am not officially driving this, and I want to stay as disconnected as possible from any legal responsibility, while still supporting the project.

As a matter of fact, people like @Yifanlu should be able to confirm that I have been trying to organize such a bounty myself, and that it is precisely the “handling of the money” that has been the main blocker. I simply do not want to be centralizing a massive amount of money for some hack that might or might not happen. It’s one thing to be responsible for a legally gray project, it’s another level if people’s money is involved.

Does it need to be reminded that, although jailbreaking a phone is legal due to a law exception, jailbreaking consoles is, at best, in a gray area. This is why you see bounties for jailbreaking a phone left and right, but you don’t typically see the same thing happening for consoles. Bottom line, once again, is, me being aware of this bounty, supporting it, promoting it (by publishing articles about it) and letting it happen on my forums, is the extent of involvement I want to have. I don’t want, in addition, to be responsible for anything money-related.

Therefore, not centralizing the money, and working with a system of pledges, rather than pre-taking the money, is the best course of action in my opinion. Yes, it means that the $2000 is absolutely not guaranteed. As a matter of fact, if I am to trust what other similar pledge drives have done, a good ballpark estimate is to assume that only half of what is pledged will actually reach the pockets of the hackers. (and keep in mind that paypal will take a big share of all pledges)

This brings me to maybe the most important point of this bounty: This bounty is an incentive, but it should not be thought as the “ultimate goal”. If, as a hacker, you start investing money into a vita hacking project, just because you expect to recoup your losses with the bounty, then just don’t even think about it. The bounty is here as an additional motivation for people who were working on a hack anyway, it is not going to turn you rich. This is how Reprep designed the initiative, not any other way.

Yes, at $2000, this bounty is getting fairly big, and yes, the guarantees are slim. Some of the people who pledged though (including myself!) are veteran members of our community, and very unlikely to bail out of their promise. Again, the only amount I can actually guarantee personally is the amount I pledged myself. It is currently at $200. Not something to wake you up at night, but a nice bonus nonetheless.