Building Apps

Who is in control?

You are. LET´s CREATE apps are built by everyone, but like successful open source products every LET´s CREATE app also has a Core Team of active, key contributors. The Core Team influences the vision of the app, standards for quality, and evaluates which contributions are accepted.

A new app's Core Team is typically made up of the inventor and sometimes LET´s CREATE staff members. As development progresses, more contributors might comprise the core team, and LET´s CREATE staff members will typically only provide support services as needed.

While anyone can create bounties and submit work, the Core Team makes approval decisions before changes are implemented and bounties are awarded.

How are the apps licensed?

Each LET´s CREATE app's source code is released under the GNU AGPL v. 3.0 license available at: (“AGPL License”) and all non-software code under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license available at: (“CC License”)

However, LET´s CREATE retains a license to commercialize the app so we can award the proceeds back to the people who made it. The LET´s CREATE platform is intended to make it easy to view and search all discussions, comments, designs, and other contributions to a project. LET´s CREATE transparently shares an app's revenue, costs, and anonymized data including number of users, MAU, page views, and other key metrics.

What technology is used to build LET´s CREATE apps?

An LET´s CREATE app's core technology is decided by the Core Team and early contributors when development is first started. Lots of people use Heroku, which guarantees the code the community builds will have a level of modularity.

As other technologies like docker and vagrant evolve so may our stack. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

How is work prioritized?

Each product’s Core Team takes on most of the prioritization work. Core Team members can select a priority level for a bounty (from lowest to highest; someday, next, now, urgent). These priorities impact the number of App Coins assigned to a bounty, and the priority of a project is determined by the priority of the bounties within it.

Additionally, anyone in the community can value a bounty, which will affect its priority and the number of App Coins assigned to it.

How is product management and prioritization rewarded?

Each product has a Tip Contract. This dictates a percentage of all newly minted coins to be minted to the Core Team and the bounty author.

The default arrangement is 5% to the Core Team (which is split among everyone on the Core Team), and 5% to the bounty author.

This is intended to reward the vision and decision-making happening on the part of the Core Team, as well as the product management work related to scoping and writing bounties. Quite often, bounties are authored by members of a product’s Core Team.

What if I find work that is clearly needed, but doesn’t have a bounty assigned to it?

Hop into that product’s chat room, and let someone know! If the need exists, the Core Team can create a bounty. Or, you can create the bounty yourself. The Assembly community values progress over consensus. Once you complete it, you’ll be rewarded with App Coins.

Different teams on LET´s CREATE operate in different ways. Some Core Teams have are eager for the community to help shape the roadmap and the vision for the product, and others have a very clear vision that they would like to stick with.

Does all work need to happen in exchange for App Coins, or is a profitable product allowed to hire contractors for things like sales and marketing?

Sales and marketing can certainly be done through bounties and App Coins, but when a product is earning enough revenue to support contractors you are more than welcome to utilize them.

What happens when there are disagreements?

The LET´s CREATE platform is intended to allow everyone to participate in influencing the direction of an app. LET´s CREATE also actively surfaces key metrics so all decisions are data driven and can even be reevaluated and rolled back later when more data is available. In the event the community hasn't come to a clear direction and the data is inconclusive, the core team will be left to mediate disputes and decide on an outcome.

What if work needs to get done that nobody is doing?

If a necessary bounty goes uncompleted, LET´s CREATE may be able to help. We're equipped to handle design, accounting, legal issues, PR, marketing and more in the future. We also may cover the initial infrastructure and marketing costs, at our discretion. As an app begins earning revenue, we pay those costs from the profits and distribute the remaining proceeds back to the contributors. Every app has an LET´s CREATE employee assigned as its liaison.

What happens if development stops on an app?

If an idea doesn't get and/or sustain support LET´s CREATE may decide to retire it. We'll notify the inventor and all the contributors. LET´s CREATE may also change the source code license to the MIT license and all non-code contributed work will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 Unported License.