Proposal for bounty program

Signed-off-by: Giuseppe Bertone <[email protected]>

BOUNTY-PROGRAM.md

@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+# Guardian Community Bounty Program: Open Source Innovation
+
+## Overview
+
+Welcome to the Guardian Quarterly Community Bounty Program.
+
+We're offering **$100,000** in bounties annually, paid quarterly, to encourage innovation and continuous improvement of our open-source software.
+
+## Program Structure
+
+### 1. Core Feature Bounties ($10,000)
+
+- 2-3 high-value bounties for developing critical features or significant improvements
+- Reward: $3,000 - $5,000 per bounty
+
+### 2. Enhancement Bounties ($7,500)
+
+- 5-10 medium-value bounties for substantial improvements or minor new features
+- Reward: $750 - $1,500 per bounty
+
+### 3. Bug Bounties ($5,000)
+
+- Ongoing rewards for bug discovery and resolution
+- Reward: $100 - $1,000 per bug, based on severity
+
+### 4. Documentation Bounties ($2,500)
+
+- Improvements to documentation, tutorials, code examples
+- Reward: $250 - $500 per significant contribution
+
+## Special Bonuses
+
+- **New Contributor Bonus**: +10% on first successfully completed bounty
+- **Outstanding Solution Bonus**: Up to +20% for particularly elegant or efficient implementations
+
+## Timeline
+
+- Program Start: 2025 January 1st
+- Submission Deadlines:
+  - 2025 March 31
+  - 2025 June 30
+  - 2025 September 30
+  - 2025 December 31
+- Winners Announcement: Within 2 weeks after each deadline
+
+## Bounty Selection and Proposal Process
+
+1. **Predefined Bounties**: Explore our list of predefined bounties on the GitHub repository's Issues page. These are tagged with the "bounty" label.
+
+2. **Custom suggestions for Security-related Bugs**: If you have a security-related bug you would like to fix, please send an email to: [email protected]
+
+3. **Non-Security-related Custom Proposals**: We encourage innovative ideas. If you have a suggestion for an improvement or feature that is not listed in our pre-defined bounties, please follow these steps:
+   a. Create a new issue on our GitHub repository with the title format: "[BOUNTY PROPOSAL] Your Idea Title"
+   b. In the issue description, provide:
+      - A detailed description of your proposed improvement or feature
+      - The potential impact on the project
+      - An estimate of the work involved
+      - Any relevant technical details or mock-ups
+   c. Add the "bounty-proposal" label to your issue
+   d. Wait for the maintainers to review your proposal. We aim to respond within 5 business days.
+   e. If approved, we'll add the "bounty" label and assign a bounty value, and you can begin working on it.
+
+Note: Always create and discuss a proposal before working on a custom idea. This ensures your effort aligns with project goals, and you are eligible for a bounty.
+
+## Participation Process
+
+1. Select a bounty from the predefined list or get approval for your custom proposal.
+2. Fork the `develop` branch of the Guardian repository to your GitHub account.
+3. Create a new branch in your fork for the specific bounty you're working on.
+4. Comment on the bounty issue to express your interest and mention that you've started working on it. This step is optional, but it would benefit all participants to know how many people are already working on the same topic. There's no limit to the number of competing people working on the same topic.
+5. Implement your solution, ensuring all code and documentation meet our project standards.
+6. Commit your changes and push to your fork.
+7. Submit a pull request (PR) from your branch to the `develop` branch of Guardian main repository (<https://github.com/hashgraph/guardian>).
+   - Ensure your PR title includes the bounty identifier (e.g., "BOUNTY-123: Implement feature X"), where `123` is the bounty issue number.
+   - In the PR description, reference the same bounty issue number using GitHub's syntax (e.g., "Closes #456")
+8. Wait for the maintainer's review. Address any feedback or requested changes promptly.
+9. Once approved, your PR will be merged into the `develop` branch.
+10. Upon successful merge and verification, wait for the winner's announcement and receive your reward!
+
+Note: Only pull requests submitted to the `develop` branch are eligible for bounties. Submissions to other branches will not be accepted unless explicitly allowed by the repository maintainers.
+
+## Licensing Requirements
+
+All contributions submitted to this bounty program must be licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. By participating in this program, you agree to the following:
+
+1. You will only submit original or derived work for which you have the right to license.
+2. You grant us and all recipients of your contribution a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute your contributions and such derivative works under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.
+3. You understand that your contributions will be incorporated into a larger work licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
+4. You have read and agree to the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0 (<http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0>).
+
+## Eligibility & Reward Rules
+
+To be eligible to participate and receive the reward, you must:
+
+- Be at least 18 years of age to participate.
+- Agree and adhere to this Policy's Program Rules and legal terms.
+- Not be a resident of, or make submissions from, a country against which the United States has issued export sanctions or other trade restrictions.
+- Not violate any national, state, or local law or regulation with respect to any activities directly or indirectly related to the Community Bounty Program.
+- Employees, contractors, or agents of Hashgraph or Hedera are not permitted to participate in the Community Bounty Program.
+- You will be asked to provide your legal identification to receive the bounty.