Bounty for Vista coders who squish bugs at home

As Microsoft wraps up work on a broad test version of Vista, it is offering engineers $100 to fix bugs in their spare time

A top Microsoft engineer has thrown out a weekend challenge to the Windows Vista team: Find and fix a bug in the current code and earn $100 (£53).

The employee who installs the latest Vista build at home and squashes the most bugs before Monday will get an extra $500.

Brian Valentine issued the challenge on Friday in an email to members of the team working on Vista, the next update of the company's Windows operating system.

The move comes as Microsoft is wrapping up work on a broad test version of Vista, expected by many Windows watchers to be released later this month. Microsoft has said it is on track to deliver a test version to roughly two million users this quarter.

Microsoft is pushing to wrap up development of Vista this year, with a mainstream launch scheduled for January. The company had long hoped to release it this holiday season, but in March announced that the launch would be delayed.

Valentine's email was noted earlier Friday by Windows enthusiast site ActiveWin.

As bug bounties go, it's small potatoes — though most others are for outsiders who report flaws. In February, VeriSign's iDefense offered to pay $10,000 for reports of flaws that end up with a "critical" severity rating in a Microsoft Security Bulletin. And Mozilla offers $500 and a Mozilla T-shirt to those who find critical security flaws in its products, which include the Firefox Web browser.



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