What is staggering is that one would assume that this service was created with the aim of helping open source developers, but when the developers ask personally to make a reasonable change to how the site is functioning, the owners decline. So the reason the site exists is something different. I don't think it's fraud. It's probably the weird culture of the (younger) part of the Bitcoin community, for whom the Bitcoin is more like cultural revolution. It's hard to rationally explain why liking Bitcoin leads to liking tip4commit's approach, but surely the Bitcoin revolutionists like to place themselves above the rest, and don't see themselves as a part of the "old" world (legal, financial system etc.).
For example, the currently highest-voted comment on /r/bitcoin for the story [0] says "I disagree with him [mitsuhiko]".
Fully agreed -- but I'm not trying to do very much with economics other than save money and pay taxes. For the things where I'm trying to act towards specific social change (e.g., privacy and security, in my case) I make an effort to be well-informed about, technically, socially, and legally. I don't have any illusions that the status quo is good, but there are also things that you can't be naive about when changing.
I think there are a lot of broken things about how currency works, but there are also quite a number of good things, and setting the whole thing on fire without understanding which parts are good and why is a recipe for hurting people and also failing to get your idea to succeed.
Given the value of BitCoin relies on desire and the only way they can possibly convince people that they want BitCoin is to spam it until they believe it...
I think it's fair to say that's a blaming statement. Comments by people who appreciate the value of the blockchain are not all naive. I'd say the vast majority of people don't quite understand the ramifications yet, and would rather talk about what we all focus on: money. That's not what I think the value of Bitcoin is, however.
For one, there's a massive disconnect in distinguishing between the value of the currency and currency as a medium of exchange. For example, most sites and discussions focus on the value of BTC vs USD. Very few look at volatility and transaction volume.
Using Bitcoin is basically, like using a foreign currency, with the only difference, that in case of a the conventional currency you might actually live in the country it is used.
In other words, whenever you use Bitcoin you take on FX risk. This means, that Bitcoin is something you wouldn't want to store value in for the long-term.
Hedging that risk will also prove a major headache, since there aren't that many Bitcoin contracts out there, and the ones that are, carry some major credit risk with them.
>This means, that Bitcoin is something you wouldn't want to store value in for the long-term.
I can think of a reason you would want to. Bitcoin is strictly supply-limited, and all fiat currencies are not. One might decide that, despite Bitcoin's volatility, the expected change in unit value over time is higher than that of any (inflationary) fiat currency.
With the difference that other fiat currencies are spectacularly unlikely to be declared illegal in your jurisdiction. There's a non-zero chance of your "bitcoin stored value" being about as desirable as a few suitcases full of cocaine, if your local laws fall that way.
I wonder if tip4commit have even considered whether any of the unsolicited donations they're collecting for are intended for residents in any of the non-green countries here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Bitcoin_by_country ? If you're a contributor to an open source project and you live in Bangladesh, this is about as welcome as receiving illegal drugs in the post in return for your open source project commits. (Yeah, a bit of hyperbole there, but still...)
>With the difference that other fiat currencies are spectacularly unlikely to be declared illegal in your jurisdiction.
So we've gone from "it's volatile" to "it's maybe, potentially, illegal at some point in the future"?
Well, there are a few reasons I wouldn't be worried about this. A) It's not likely that Bitcoin will be banned outright in most countries. B) If it were to be banned outright, you'd likely have plenty of notice and be able to sell it before the laws took effect.
Also, it is not as if the project is actually sending Bitcoin to the developers; it is simply making it available for them to claim. A more comparable analogy would be if a sweepstakes in Colorado told me I had won some free marijuana; even though marijuana is illegal in my state, I am not legally culpable unless I actually claim the winnings.
I still think the "potentially illegal at some point in the future" is a real consideration in the discussion about using Bitcoin "to store value in for the long-term".
As for the difference between "sending Bitcoin to developers" vs "making it available for them to claim" - think about how you'd feel if someone in Colorado was running a website saying "Donate marijuana to wyager for each of his upvoted HN comments!", then had your local police come round to your place asking you about"your" 7oz of illegal drugs? However "in the right" you are, being put in that position without being asked, and having "that guy" argue about whether he needs to stop doing it when you complain... I personally wouldn't want to be involved in those arguments, nor would I be at all happy about other people supporting :that guy"'s rights to keep doing it.
True, if we expect the BTC FX risk to be lower, than the inflation risk of the best possible fiat currency choice, then BTC would be the superior choice.
It's different than most other foreign currencies in the sense that it's variance in value is MUCH higher than your usual currency. I would consider storing my personal fortune in CHF, JPY, USD, or even EUR but never in BTC.
Friction, lowest friction tends to win and bitcoin demands friction to run the blockchain. I don't think electronic exchange mechanisms are daft, but I do think the bitcoin model is.
It requires (electrical) power. I don't think this could reasonably be called "friction". When I think "friction", I think of burdens imposed on users. Bitcoin has relatively few of those.
There are about 500 transactions per block; each block contains 25BTC + fees (the fees are negligible at the moment). At the current price of $350/BTC that means that the revenue per transaction is 25*350/500 = $17, which means that the cost per transaction should be around that area. This means that the low transaction fee is actually massively subsidized by the fixed block reward.
The failure, nay the pigheaded refusal, to learn from history.
BitCoin is faux money and will likely be recorded as the "Dutch Tulip Bubble" [0] of our times.
Intentions and wishful thinking alone are not enough to create revolutions. Crises are invariably required to change such fundamental concepts as value of currency in the public's mind, and it has to happen on a massive scale in a tiny span of time. BitCoin will be no more than the butt of jokes in another decade unless it finds it's destiny in a crisis made for it to shine.
You haven't actually mentioned any economic principles; you've just compared Bitcoin to a historical bubble (of which there were certainly many) without any evidence supporting this comparison.
>BitCoin is faux money
Could you expand on this? How do you define "faux" money?
OK, you're making 2 different claims. The first claim is that Bitoiners refuse to learn from history. But the second claim is that crises are required for revolutionary change (history says, I presume). So how are Bitcoiners refusing to learn from history? By trying in the first place? Or by failing to manufacture a crisis?
And really, linking to the wikipedia page of tulip mania, as if we haven't heard that trope 10,000 times?
I don't think the second part of your comment is correct and the fact that this situation about tip4commit and discussions around it makes it to seam correct forces me to dislike it [tip4commit] even more. I mean, there isn't really "two armies" fighting each other: "old world" vs "bitcoin-ish world" with completely polar ideologies, there's no black and white. So when someone on one side is doing some ridiculous nonsense it doesn't make the other side automatically "the right one" and vice versa. Even not being part of Bitcoin community I personally think there's quite real need in "cultural revolution" of some sort, because what you are calling the "old world" isn't really "old" one as you surely understand yourself: it's quite significant part of the only world we are living in, and it is as full with nonsense as the "new, revolutionary" one.
I mean, there truly is quite a lot things that one can disagree with about the "old" world, maybe even somewhat forcefully, in "Gandhi's way" rather than "Kant's way". So when somebody associated with the "new" world behaves stupid he causes much more harm for the supporters of all kind of "cultural revolutions", because makes them look like a bunch of idiots no matter how different from each other their actual beliefs and reasoning may be.
I do feel some sort of kinship here with the Bitcoin attitude, but it's worth remembering that readability pulled an (arguably worse) version of this stunt in the past few years, and were called out as scumbags for it. No Bitcoin in that story.
>It's hard to rationally explain why liking Bitcoin leads to liking tip4commit's approach
A currency only works if people use it. A good way to support bitcoin is to expand adoption. It seems to me that the creators of tip4commit have blinders on and only view the project through bitcoin colored glasses.
The issue as I see it is that the bitcoin movement mirrors the technology's decentralized nature. There is a general optimism and push towards adoption, but no real methods or direction towards that goal. It's a rather organic, evolving system. Things that have helped adoption have been repeated and things that cause a backlash are squashed and learned from. The latter is what I would say is happening here.
The non-sketchy version of this would only accept tips for repos that had a bitcoin address committed to a well-known location in their repo. And it would send the tips directly to that address. No possibility of scamming, and opt-in by its nature.
That seems to go against the idea of tip4commit, the idea is that contributors (through pull requests etc) can be compensated as well automatically. Same if there's multiple contributors to a project the compensation is split between them based on the amount of commits they make.
Couldn't that be fixed by having contributors creating a specifically named repo with the address in a file? Still opt in. It could be opt in for the maintainer too, following jchrisa's suggestion, meaning the maintainer could veto payments.
I got the exact opposite of that (or I'm misunderstanding you).. The title of the story on reddit is:
> "Please remove mitsuhiko/* (This guy is complaining about tip4commit, please help educate about Bitcoin)"
and the mod writes:
> "You are not allowed to incite brigading. Please resubmit using the original source - the github link. You are part of the problem of why people hate our community"
Seems like the mod is reprimanding the submitter of the story for the "please help educate about Bitcoin" part of the submission (which is inciting brigading).
Or maybe it's just a cool hackathon project using Bitcoin and the Github APIs...
Seriously, what is the big deal with this? The developers are more than able to simply ignore the donations. Anyone who wasted time complaining in that Github thread could have clicked "mark as spam" in a fraction of the time and been done with it.
I guess the real reason was Armin's sincere indignation (quite justified in my opinion) about some random site on the web making use of his project name in some questionable way that appears like it is encouraged by the project maintainer himself. Emails are minor nuisance as you always can create one more filter to get rid of known spam. And then "shit just hit the fan", so all discussion that follows is more about making noise and threats about throwing lawyers in each other than really trying to solve anything.
>some random site on the web making use of his project name in some questionable way that appears like it is encouraged by the project maintainer himself.
Everyone who used this tipping mechanism would have at least a cursory idea of how it works, and that's all it takes to understand that project maintainers have zero involvement with it.
I think you were probably referring to my comment - and for what it's worth, I'm thinking you're absolutely correct about it being a cultural difference.
The Bitcoin community is made up of predominately radical libertarians; I say that with the utmost respect, as I consider myself part of that very group. The culture is very different from that of the Python community - and one of those ways is that it is often acceptable to alienate a portion of your potential userbase.
I do not normally rant, but tip4commit and its ilk are some of the most infuriating people in the world to deal with, since they're opting other people's projects into something that has all sorts of legal/taxation consequences and think that "we have no way to remove you once you get opted in" is an acceptable answer.
I'd push complaints further up to GitHub, since I'm sure something in the way this works violates their ToS, but ultimately that wouldn't do anything except cause them to self-host their code and keep running the "service".
How can there be taxation consequences unless you act to set up a bitcoin address and accept the offered tip? If you've done all that, I think it's clear you know what you're doing. If you don't do that, then the money (apparently?) returns to the project you committed to, from whence it came.
The only way there could be tax is if you receive the money, and that can only happen by you deliberately becoming involved.
* In some countries it is illegal to opt someone into services they didn't ask for.
* In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited emails about services.
* In some countries it is illegal to accept or solicit donations without registering first with tax authorities.
* In some countries it is illegal to suggest a financial relationship between yourself and another person/entity when no such relationship exists.
* In some countries it is illegal to pay out to people without also filing tax documents to track the payment and provide the recipient with records they legally are required to keep.
etc., etc.
Their track record when confronted by people who have issues with some/all of the above is not encouraging. They appear to me to be putting far too much faith in "we're doing BitCoin on the internet" as a magic shield against laws, and they do not appear to have ever talked to anyone who knows even the tax or service laws of even major countries in which the developers they solicit on "behalf" of live (evidenced by comments from them that they are too small to afford lawyers).
> In some countries it is illegal to opt someone into services they didn't ask for.
Nope. You are not a part of service unless you accept the tip.
> In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited emails about services.
True that. This should probably be fixed.
> In some countries it is illegal to accept or solicit donations without registering first with tax authorities.
Donation does not exist unless you accept that bitcoin. This is not a problem of tip4commit. It's a problem between country and it's tax resident.
> In some countries it is illegal to suggest a financial relationship between yourself and another person/entity when no such relationship exists.
Once again. Relationship does not exist unless you've created it by accepting that tip. As for suggestion - they are only suggesting that you can create such relationship.
> In some countries it is illegal to pay out to people without also filing tax documents to track the payment and provide the recipient with records they legally are required to keep.
PEBCATR - Problem exists between country and tax resident.
If those are really problems - you have problem with your gov and your laws, not bitcoin or tip4commit.
So, because you are philosophically opposed to certain laws, I should have my inbox filled with a tipping "service" and my name and projects listed as available to donate to, on a donation-collection site I refuse to do business with, and have no ability to opt out of it?
Protip: close the /r/bitcoin tab, close the mises.org tab, and learn to be a decent human being.
In the US, if a payment is "available" to you, it must be reported as income at the time it becomes available. Failure to cash a paycheck doesn't mean you don't owe tax on it.
That makes absolutely no sense to me. If I get an offer from a bank that $200 is available to me if I open a checking account with them, then do I have to report it as income even if I don't open an account or perform any action to go after it?
The tip4commit payment is a tip paid because of work you did; elsewhere in IRS pub 525 and pub 531 it's clear (well, as clear as any IRS document ever is) that tips count as income.
the checking account offer isn't compensation for something you've already done. I think that makes it clearly distinguishable. But I'm not a lawyer; get competent legal advice before deciding you can pretend a tip-for-commit payment didn't happen.
That depends. The difference here is that they are doing the bitcoin equivalent of leaving money on the table after you did unrelated work. Yea you have to reach down to the table and take it. But the IRS is saying until you do something about it, it counts as income because you effectively own it.
But again, lawyers haven't finished discussing all the legal ramifications of crypto-currencies or for that matter the internet in general.
Yes, it's true you're supposed to pay taxes for money earned in the year it was earned, not just when you happened to deposit the check. That has little to no bearing for this situation.
First, the money isn't available since it hasn't even been sent to you. Until you sign-up for the service, and provide a bitcoin address for the funds to be sent to your private key, they are not available. But more importantly, since you have no business relationship with the person giving the money, I would think the best characterization for the income is a tax-free gift (up to $14,000 per giver). But IANAL, and this isn't tax advice.
Either the service is just funneling money to software authors, or they are collecting it themselves and holding it unless and until authors want it. So if it's the latter, then they are raising money using someone else's name and reputation. Either way, that's not at all cool.
> In the US, if a payment is "available" to you, it must be reported as income at the time it becomes available. Failure to cash a paycheck doesn't mean you don't owe tax on it.
I don't believe that's correct. A check which is never cashed is not income, as the funds are never transferred there is no income, there is no income tax. The point of the IRS regulation is that tax period in which the check is received is the applicable one, rather than the tax period when it is cashed.
> How can there be taxation consequences unless ...
Tax? Perhaps not, but the OP was talking about tax and other legal consequences. These can vary wildly from country to country.
My local legislation requires applying for a permit before asking for donations. If a 3rd party would add my projects to this website, I could face criminal charges and the proof of burden would be on me.
What? You live in a country where someone can use your name in a fund-raiser without your approval or authorization and you will face criminal charges with presumption of guilt?
Some project on github is not even remotely your biggest problem here.
I would qualify as living in such a country: the USA.
Some unfortunate medical issues put me on disability, which means living off of SSDI for a while. For various reasons the social security programs in this country are run with a focus on "stopping fraud" instead of "helping people", regardless of little shrinkage and waste actually exists.
A consequence of this is that you are required to be "in need" which is usually defined as not having more than like $30 in cash to your name. This includes all possible recoverable sources modulo a few enumerated items (such as one cheap car). As part of the application process, I had to liquidate stuff like the $70 i had in a "mandatory contribution" retirement account from a short-lived tech support job I had when I was an undergrad. Of course, as this was WAY before you were supposed to withdraw that money, it came with penalties that made that ~$70 worth only about $10. That was still considered "recoverable".
I have some stuff up on github. At the moment, none of it is very interesting or worthy of any tip. I suspect that for now the IRS/H&HS hasn't even heard of this kind of income. They certainly are not currently looking at potential income sources this new and unusual. That could change in time.
Regardless of the probably-low actual risk, I would be required to liquidate this kind of tip right now if any existed. Failure to do so could cause cancel my SSDI. That loss could even be retroactive back to the date the tip was sent.
I have no idea how this would play out in practice. It might not be as problematic as I described. What I do know is that social security moves by the whim of politicians and bureaucrats, making the entire topic very hard to predict. So yes, someone using my name in a fund-raiser can not only cause "tax issues", it also caries a (probably-)small but very real risk of removing my only source of income (aka "rent", "food").
No, these rules are not sane (or useful). Yes, this is a big problem, that is much larger than github. Unfortunately, the potential risk to anybody in a situation like mine is still very real.
> What? You live in a country where someone can use your name in a fund-raiser without your approval or authorization and you will face criminal charges with presumption of guilt?
It's extremely unlikely that I could get convicted because of it, very unlikely that they'd even start the case either. But it would at least mean significant paperwork and other nuisance.
It's not like I'd get sent to Siberia but yeah, my country is full of stupid laws. And so are many other countries.
Actually I do think the intent of this law is good and it's to protect individuals from scams. But the practice should be updated to better work with crowdfunding and other Internet fundraisers.
Here's a similar example from earlier this year, the local police demanded that local Wikimedia foundation chapter explain their fundraising campaign.
The local Wikimedia chapter had no part to play in it, were not charged in the end, but had to spend time and effort explaining that it's the California-based US entity asking for the donations.
>>What? You live in a country where someone can use your name in a fund-raiser without your approval or authorization and you will face criminal charges with presumption of guilt?
The point is that, because there isn't a way to opt-out of the project, it is the responsibility of the tip4commit developers to do their due diligence and make sure they aren't putting anyone in hot waters with their project.
Not only have they not done that, they're also being indignant assholes about it.
If they changed it to opt-in, I would think the whole problem would go away.
I should have said: you need permit before asking for donations (corrected in GP). As I said, if my projects were listed on this site, I could face criminal charges, regardless whether any money ever changes hands.
soliciting contributions in UK. Moot point as to how someone else soliciting a contribution on your behalf without your permission is seen.
I think that people who set Web services up really need to think about what territory the service is designed to operate in and which legal system(s) they have the time and resources to examine.
Could you add a few more words to explain your interpretations of those terms in practice here?
The rest of the folks in the thread and on the Github issue are exploring what those terms mean. I'm not seeing you provide much insight or rationale into your interpretations beyond a simple "No, we are not."
How are we failing to make clear the reasons behind the reaction to your work?
How are we failing to make clear the various suggestions for making your work actually useful instead of potentially harmful to the projects you claim to be trying to help?
People have legitimate reasons to avoid messing with BTC or others. Some people don't even want to hassle with currencies beyond their own.
Even if they oblige in accepting BTC and just convert it to their preferred currency, they'd be forced to go through the process of signing up and verifying with some sort of exchange. What if they don't want to do business with those institutions, or share their financial details to yet another third-party? Cryptocurrencies will succeed, thankfully, but some people don't want to put their toes in those legal waters yet. They will also have to spend more time administering to local laws and taxes regarding donations, which eats away the time they have for other much more fun things.
I feel like we shouldn't miss the point here: you can't impersonate me and take donations in my name without my consent, no matter the currency (or regulations or whatever) being used. Make it opt-in, not "opted in by default and no way to opt out".
We don't impersonate anybody. We just provide additional way to reward project's contributors and perhaps attract more of them. We'll make it more explicit with https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/136
Firstly, you need to make abundantly obvious and clear promises as to what happens to money left it accounts. There is no reason to trust your escrow, let alone your ability to manage or secure it. I honestly still can't find it spelled out clearly, and even then it'd be hard to trust.
I suggest you pull your site before this PR gets even further out of hand, then reboot. If you continue to pursue your project, partner with a couple projects that opt-in (free publicity for you both) and work to their needs. Once you have things in order, then you can think about something more automated.
Nobody is being forced to accept the money, and therefore nobody is being forced to interact with bitcoin. The money is there if they want to claim it. If not, no problem, they can just ignore it in which case it doesn't affect them.
Would the project be sustainable, or more fair, if it allowed project maintainers to whitelist currencies, and manage that integration for them? That seems more appropriate and follows the the spirit of giving that the project encourages.
Tip4commit using USD? Bitcoin is hasslefree. If you want tip4commit to use USD or gold or any other silly thing - go for it. Clone tip4commit, put all integration in place, see payment systems eating 30-40% of your donations.
OK, so yes. We agree that it is unsustainable if the effort is put forth to make your product actually convenient for the volunteers whose shoulders you sit on.
Meanwhile you insult us by simply saying "fork it." That doesn't get money donated on my behalf out of your Bitcoin wallet. I suggest y'all stop bickering and actually start helping. The burden to clean up your oversights is on no one but yourself.
We know you built the project in good faith, but it needs serious tweaks. At this point you're being a nuisance, at best, to the very creators of projects your site is deployed upon! If they were in your situation they would have fixed this, shipped it, and have written a detailed postmortem by now.
Consider this: you are in a high-tax country and have some incoming lucrative income. Instead of receiving that income and paying the tax, the company sends you an email saying: Here's a $100,000, come get if you want, but you don't have to! It's a tip! It'll get donated to MSF in a few years. Wink, wink. You put in your income for the year as $0 (not having accepted this tip), and leave for the Seyschelles, where suddenly you come upon this email (you didn't check your Spam folder until then) and claim your now tax-free $100,000.
Sure, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance . Various strategies to reduce income in one year or jurisdiction and apply it to another are widespread, and I'm not sure why this would be different. I am not a lawyer, though.
The "It's a tip!" nature of this seems irrelevant to taxes: either you accept it or you don't, and if you do, you may or may not be required to pay taxes on it, depending on laws that are applied to you.
in the US the key event is when the income becomes available to you, not when you collect it.
The proper thing to do in your hypothetical case (where you didn't see the message until well into the next tax year) would be to file an amended return for the previous year declaring the recently discovered income.
So if I don't want to accept the taxation consequences, the shady project gets to use my name to raise money? There is no response I can have that doesn't have some cost to me.
Set aside the legal/tax questions since it just brings out the armchair lawyers.
It is simply not cool to use a project's name to collect money from its fans without their permission. And without any promise that the money will make it to the intended recipient. And certainly without any indication of what happens to the money that doesn't make it to the recipient.
Maybe contacting their hosting provider could be an additional way to approach the problem, since, from what I can tell, the messages they send to contributors are spam.
We (Django) already threatened that a while back. They still insist they will not remove projects or stop collecting donations on behalf of non-consenting projects. All they did was manually disable some of the spam coming toward our committers.
Emailing someone in Canada now requires consent (various legal ways) or close personal relationship. It doesn't cost anything to report them https://services.crtc.gc.ca/pub/rapidsccm/Default-Defaut.asp... .
But if you really wanted to pursue them, you would have to hire a lawyer, a complaint doesn't have the same weight or speed of a legal filing.
This just goes to show you has clueless the developers are with regards to international policy and law.
You do realise that there is life and even entire civilizations outside of the USA, where DMCA holds no jurisdiction and the entire idea of suing becomes much more complicated? Especially when it seems from the GitHub discussion thread the tip4commit founder lives in a place where there is no regulations regarding what is a spam and what is not. ;)
Maybe, but if they make it clear that they're not sponsored or endorsed by the project in question, it'd probably be considered nominative fair use, at least in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use
They are soliciting donations using the project name. I don't think that falls into nominative use. It'd be really weird if I could use the logo of the Salvation Army to solicit donations for my own organization even if I intended to give some of the donated money to them.
I think so, yes. See Iceweasel[0], the custom Debian build of Firefox. I'm not sure that you'd be successful in using trademark law in this particular scenario though.
If you want to support Django and its community and development (which includes more than just commits to a git repository), there is also a mechanism to donate to the DSF:
This is the OSS crowd-funding/tipping equivalent of GetSatisfaction and UserVoice. Both started as service-desk/bug-tracking platforms that included the software of completely unaffiliated companies but have morphed into customer engagement platforms as SaaS.
Those projects are in the public domain. If there are purposes that you don't want your project to be used for then forbid it in the license. When you put your contact information in the public domain and then complain about being notified when somebody has given you money, I feel like you're complaining just for the sake of complaining. Set up filter rules or don't put your contact information on the internet.
If I was denied the chance to receive a donation for a contribution I made to an open source project essentially because the "project owner" doesn't agree then I'd be very annoyed.
> If there are purposes that you don't want your project to be used for then forbid it in the license.
This is completely inapplicable.
> If I was denied the chance to receive a donation for a contribution I made to an open source project essentially because the "project owner" doesn't agree then I'd be very annoyed.
They are all valid points, if you don't like it, argue against it, don't get snarky.
Edit: Yes thanks for that downvote, encouraging people to have an intelligent conversation through constructive arguments rather than making pointless remarks seems to be frowned upon by some people
The person who replied to him basically just said, "I disagree." They didn't provide any reasons for this. They were also being rude. I think his response was appropriate.
I totally provided "why." The public domain has nothing to do with open source. Copyright doesn't apply to brand use. Dude didn't research but hopped right up on that soap box, and judging from the upvotes, I wasn't the only one to be put off by it.
Shouldn't down votes be reserved for people who are being inflammatory or trolling? This guy just expressed his opinion. Just because you don't agree with him, does that mean you need to down-vote him? Doing this only encourages people to have the same viewpoint.
No. It's irrelevant and wrong. The third party site raising money in these projects' names is not using code from the projects to do so, it is only using the name. They are not bound by any license offered by the projects. Maybe the projects' authors can pursue some kind of action for that alone, but it has nothing to do with the terms under which the project is licensed.
Maybe licenses could be modified to cover the case of using the name? No idea what the legalities of this situation are, but if this problem is rampant, it seems at least plausible that the right legalese could help stem the tide.
No, they can't. Licenses are based on copyright law. The copyright holder may set terms under which the content they hold a copyright on may be copied and distributed. This is what a license is all about. Copyright does not apply to names of projects, titles of books, etc. Only to the content itself.
The use of the name, by itself, is not and cannot be protected by a license. This is the domain of trademarks, which few of these projects would have, because trademarks must be registered and paid for. But that's probably not the issue here. The real issue is that the site seems to imply a business relationship with various projects and contributors that does not actually exist. Likely, this is enough to bring action if it comes to that.
Also, to address a point of confusion in this discussion: The no-promotion provisions in the BSD license and similar only applies to derivative software, which would be use under the license. The author can place restrictions on promotion of derivative works only because the licensee is actually copying and distributing the code under license and the license is the only thing that would give him the right to do so.
not a lawyer, but one quick way to gain some protection for these developers would be to treat their online archives at github as IP, use it in some minimal commerce activity and copyright the name of the product. At that point, it would be less legally defensible for tip4commit to solicit donations for them.
I'm confused to why this project is a good idea. It seems like they are collecting funds on behalf of a third party without that third parties consent and then distributing those funds, again without third parties knowledge or consent.
As much as the project seems to have good intentions, insisting that It's BitCoin, BitCoin is different doesn't mean your product is actually exempt from rules and law. Or that Bitcoin is all that different.
There is no reason someone couldn't build a similar project using traditional currency. But then they would run afoul of the many laws designed to protect depositors, investors, and the financial system writ-large. As someone remarks in TFA, holding the amount of currency on ones balance sheets this project would, if successful, is a terrible idea. It's ripe for fraud and abuse. There is a reason services like Gittip assist in transferring fund, and act as the debiter and depositor.
This whole thing is emblematic of the problems with Bitcoin culture, which seems to think it doesn't have to follow any of the rules. Sorry lads, if Bitcoin is currency, you have to behave like banks and investment firms if you are going to act like banks and investment firms.
I think that the project is a bad idea because you can't impersonate me and take donations in my name without my consent, no matter which currency is being used.
Can you explain how they have given that impression? I still don't fully understand what's going on here, but my first impression (Which seems to be the issue you have, that they are masquarading or implying that they are operating on behalf of the developer) is that they let people put bounties on bugs.
That means they are independent and third party and in no way necessarily affiliated with the project. I understood that right from the start, but I only have a 3rd person perspective on this, are the private messages different?
> Donate bitcoins to open source projects or make commits and get tips for it.
The language used is "donate to projects". If you click the "See projects" button, you get to a page with the header "Supported projects", which suggests some kind of agreement between the project and Tip4Commit.
If you click a project, you get to a page with text like "Project sponsors", and even "No sponsors yet. Be the first to support this project.". The implied "... on Tip4Commit" part is not obvious.
The only thing suggesting that Tip4Commit is not affiliated with the projects is a low-contrast message at the bottom of each page, which was added after this blew up.
arsenische - Do I need to learn all the laws of all the countries before publishing anything online or may I just use the common sense and conscience please?
mitsuhiko - To be honest: when it comes to handling money I would assume so. If this website would be dealing with a real world currency you would have a bunch of problems on yourself at this point. Most people would avoid holding funds on their books for an unlimited amount of time.
Don't build software you have to opt-out of and you have a lot less problems on your hand. Right now, this is dangerously close to being sued by someone.
arsenische - That's why this kind of project is hardly possible with traditional money. This project was created during a 48 hour rails rumble competition. The beauty of Bitcoin is that everybody can use it to create something during a weekend.
This is not a commercial project, we don't have resources to hire lawyers and accountants.
---
From this it seems that not only do they think it avoids legal issues, but they do not consider publicly raising bitcoin to be a commercial project that needs lawyers or accountants.
Hmm. I can partially agree with that take on what they're saying.
Though it seems more like they're saying "We have no resources but were able to this because it uses Bitcoin" than "We're immune to laws because we're using Bitcoin".
Although this situation points out that there is a fundamental conflict with Bitcoin and the established systems that's going to require an adjustment period.
While it's certainly true that laws governing money, accounting, finance, etc. can, will, and do apply to Bitcoin, the fact still remains that it's really easy to move money around electronically outside of institutional controls. Previously, the laws controlling electronic transfer have been enforced via the institutions, and that's no longer entirely possible.
Some things will have to change, it will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
There's no fundamental conflict. Due to the existence of hard cash, I can set up a stall on the street selling stuff. However the tax and licensing folk might still want to talk to me, so just because I have only spent a weekend making a market barrow with a nice tarp, doesn't mean I shouldn't check out the legal ramifications before heading into town with my wares.
edit - Also, if they are actually someone else's wares and you haven't yet asked anyone for their permission, buy several lawyers and some duct tape and apply them as full-body protective padding.
You're responding to something other than what I'm talking about.
Of course the laws still apply, but the enforcement mechanisms (which have thus far been administered via institutions) can now be circumvented to a certain extent.
It is a fundamental conflict and adjustment will be required.
I was trying to address directly that point. Pre-bitcoin, you could avoid the enforcement mechanisms with hard cash and a barrow. There was a long running British sitcom called "Only Fools and Horses" that dealt with this quite thoroughly.
edit - If fleshed out a bit, the premise behind this project might actually make quite a good 21st century sequel episode. Del Boy would love bitcoin.
Except you know it would be a complete balls up, of course. Rodney would be all excited about the idea of Bitcoin, convince Del Boy on it, and then they'd start up their own TITcoin (Trotter's Independent Traders, of course) which would totally fall on its arse ;-)
Well, despite containing fictional characters, I think this may be a more convincing explanation of what occurred behind the scenes at MtGox than any that has so far been publicly announced.
The first point has nothing to do with bitcoin. Any internet entrepreneur has to consider that question at some point and the answer is mostly: no, I do not need to learn all the laws of all the countries before starting a business online.
I sell a service online. I know that I do not need to transfer VAT to the US government when selling to American citizens. I know I need to transfer VAT to my EU government for any sale to a citizen of an EU country. So far so good. Do you honestly think I know what to do when a Kenyan or Vietnamese citizen makes a purchase? Do you think most small US-based companies transfer VAT to the EU? Do you think anyone bars citizens from countries they don't want to deal with from purchasing their services?
The internet is still the wild west for many things, because governments of the world still haven't caught up with internet commerce. Nobody, except for the larges companies, can reasonably be expected to be able to deal with the laws of a few hundred countries.
> What happens to unclaimed tips (if recipient doesn't sign in and specify his/her bitcoin address)?
Funds that are not claimed during 30 days get returned back to the project.
Presumably "the project" in the answer refers to tip4commit? If so, isn't tip4commit committing fraud by advertising that tips go to the intended recipient, when in fact, if the recipient does not participate, they go into tip4commit's coffers?
(Or is "the project" a mistake and should read "the donor"?)
I assumed "the project" meant that the tip goes back into a general pool still dedicated to the particular project the tip was originally designated for. Then these funds would be available for redistribution when new commits are made to the project.
I can see how "the project" could also be interpreted as tip4commit though and if that's the case, that's pretty lousy.
> I assumed "the project" meant that the tip goes back into a general pool still dedicated to the particular project the tip was originally designated for.
If by now you don't understand that this project is a bad idea, you are going to get a reputation of being not intelligent. That's not a good reputation for a coder.
Why is it a bad idea?
Maybe people have already stated the reasons. And you (wrongly) think you have effectively refuted them. You are being, to choose a mild word, dense.
Sometimes it's best to just look at how mad you are making people, and draw your conclusions from that.
I think tip4commit is a pretty hostile project itself. It deserves a hostile reprimand. And since the creator refuses to even opt-out (let alone opt-in) projects, I really can't feel sorry for them.
When I said "returned to the project's balance" - I meant "returned to the funded project's balance" so that other contributors to that project could receive them.
Sorry if sounds ambiguous, English is not my native language.
I'd get a few different signs from random organisations like doctor's without borders, red cross and some other popular ones and then I'll setup on the town square. Big ass signs and maybe a little pamphlet with the details. I'll let everyone know what a fantastic contribution to world peace I'm doing and that I will hand over all their donations as soon as the organisation they donated to gets in touch with me.
I'll just send the organisations a mail informing them that they now have a business relationship with me that I refuse to let them opt-out of. They probably won't mind...
Stop being stupid. Clear your database and implement opt-in.
However every project's balance is stored in your coffers, correct ? And you use an exponential decay function to distribute tips (1% of the balance per commit), which means that some fraction of the donated amount will always remain in your possession, correct ? And statistically, a majority of projects will slow down or stop development altogether eventually, and in this case you will keep the bitcoins indefinitely, correct ?
Could you provide an estimate of the amount of tips actually sent to people with regards to the amount donated ? Could you also provide an estimate of how much funds are being withheld because the tips amount is below the withdrawal threshold ?
And what happens when a project's owner will never claim tips? Like if he declared he is not interested in using your site, but people will pay tips because they see the project's name?
It's been a long time since I was a law student. However, as I recall the rules of trusts in common law countries (assuming this thing is covered by those rules):
1. If you take a donation from A on behalf of B, you are now a trustee. That means you're bound by fiduciary duty, which is a very strict standard of behaviour[1].
2. If you can't find B, or if B refuses to accept the donation, you must return it to A. It cannot be repurposed for other beneficiaries.
3. If you repurpose the funds for yourself, you have breached fiduciary duty and are legally in deep, deep shit.
The exceptions are, of course, if you explicitly formed a trust with explicit terms allowing you to select other beneficiaries.
Of course, the laws vary according to jurisdiction. Trusts caselaw has evolved slightly differently in different common law countries. And legislatures are typically suspicious of trusts because they get used a lot to reduce tax burdens, so there tends to be a lot of local tinkering with the trusts laws.
They mean the overall project the individual contributor was contributing to I believe. But, what happens if the overall project isn't participating? Does tip4commit keep it?
I also wonder if tip4commit has looked into whether there is a legal requirement for them to escheat the funds to the state to hold for the individual if the individual doesn't claim it.
Please send donations for the Django project directly to me. Once the donations accumulate to more than $3000, I will email the Django developers, requesting that they come get the donations.
<whisper>And if the Django project doesn't come get the donations within 30 days, we don't tell you what happens to the donations. What happens to the money, if its not claimed, may (or may not) go against the wishes of yourself or the Django developers (that we're collecting money on behalf of, without permission). Also, sending these donations exposes the developers to serious legal consequences.</whisper>
I'm sure he sent them a notification about their new account on his website on which, if they create an account, they may or may not find information of value to them.
Thank you very much! I am quite surprised because I remember fixing this issue in the same day patch became available and I run update recently. Upgrading the distro, hopefully it fixes the problem.
Upgrading the distro is likely insufficient, as your private key has potentially (likely, at this point) been compromised. At a minimum you need a new key and cert.
A few things I found about tip4commit by searching through reddit:
- 4 months ago Bitcoin Core was happy to raise 1.8BTC in two days using tip4commit [0], but today's comment [1] signals they are not happy with tip4commit, because it encourages submitting large number of small commits
- an IT World article about 40% donations being unclaimed [2] (1.384BTC)
- "we discovered a security breach" [3]
- OpenBazaar, a fork of Dark Market, a market for drugs, encourages to make donations using tip4commit [4]
- "Tip4Coin donations look like they are stolen" [5]
Unfortunately it looks like a typical Bitcoin project - naivety of the authors, in terms of technical and legal matters, plus douchebag attitude (ignoring others, even if they are owners of things they profit from), plus shady entities benefiting from them.
First, I want to apologize. We have received a lot of negative feedback suddenly and I can assure you that we take it seriously.
I temporary disabled ALL the email notifications (even though I don't think they were a real problem) and added a warning that we are not affiliated with project owners. When my teammate is online he will probably also some of the other issues.
Perhaps some people just misunderstand the project and hate it.
Also I think that it is normal that developers try to understand the motivation of users and ask questions in order to find a better solution, please don't take it as offence or reluctance to change.
We are going to resolve every issue or close the project.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but tip4commit is a poisonous project that does more harm than good. You should shut the whole thing down.
Providing monetary incentives gamifies the development process, which is not a good thing. It has been shown that providing monetary incentives below a threshold decreases both the quality and quantity of contributions. For more information about this I suggest reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink.
Tip4commit was started for the bitcoin project. I'm a bitcoin developer. We don't like tip4commit. What results in practice is that we end up with ill-formed, poorly thought out, excessively large, trivial, time wasting pull requests to review, which takes time away from beneficial development.
Your service is not helping open source software. It is hurting it. You are paying people to provide distractions which slow down development. Please stop.
I think that implementing "opt-in" is the natural solution and yet the maintainer writes that it will "brake everything". I don't understand this extreme reluctance of Tip4Commit to acknowledge the right of owners of projects to control things tightly related to the projects they own.
For what it's worth, I don't believe maintainers have a moral or legal right to control what happens between third parties - that is, contributors to their project and those who wish to support them.
I wouldn't be opposed to implementing opt-out at a project level... but it's not my project.
As I told you on reddit, I'm going through hell trying to opt-out as an individual. I know for a fact that they harvested and have been using information about me from GitHub without my permission and in violation of GitHub's terms of service. Since your comments consistently resort to legalism, how do you resolve that conundrum? I'm honestly trying very hard to not just go with the nuclear option of starting to seek enforcement of service-provider terms to shut down tip4commit, but they aren't exactly leaving tons of other options.
If they're violating Github's T&C, that seems like a good place to start. You've obviously given them plenty of notice of your discontent - they've had ample opportunity to work with you to resolve it.
I guess they still have a moral right to ask their contributors to be up front about the incentives involved in their contributions (they can't demand disclosure, but they could still refuse contributions where they don't feel they have enough understanding of the incentives involved).
The point being, setting the thing up behind their back brings a lot of risk of poisoning the relationship between the contributor and the project.
Maybe it's stupid for a project to act like that, but once it turns into a hair splitting exercise, you might as well split all of them.
Devil's advocate: If you wish to tightly control everything related to your project then perhaps use a private CVS rather than a public repo on Github. By using Github's free and very social oriented service you are implicitly giving up some control over the project.
If opt-in would kill your project, it's probably a bad project. Much in the same way that if your business can't survive without exploiting people, it's a bad business.
Opt-in doesn't mean they couldn't inform projects when someone actually wants to donate. First donation just needs to be framed as an invitation to use tip4commit with no being a valid (and default) option.
Because instead of having a million projects, you'd have 3. The power of defaults and opt-out is pretty well-understood to the point I'd call it non-controversial.
So what? That is a typical use case for an opt-in platform with possible good outcomes. If you do it opt-out, it's unsolicited, unwelcomed and just badly setup. This discussion and the one on Github itself is a perfect example why.
You can't blame someone else for not having a responsible (e.g. opt-in) growth engine...
They would have projects from people who are interested in their services, and interested in having them accept money on the projects behalf. If that number is 3, so be it.
The point of your service as it stands right now is that people give you money in exchange for a promise to make it reach other people, who have no idea that you are collecting it on their behalf. If you can not reach them, this money remains with you (as the "donation pool" is under your control). You are very likely to run into legal trouble beause of this, sooner rather than later, so IMHO it is in your best interest to stop the service in its current form.
You have to work with the community rather than against it. If there are maintainers out there that really want this, collaborate with them and grow from there.
The objection is you're committing fraud. You're soliciting 'donations' for a third party (everyone committing to a project) without their consent. Unbeknownst to the donaters you're then keeping these 'donations' because the third-party has no interest in taking them. This is pretty shaky ground to be on, and it only takes one person to decide to take legal action against you.
They should simply state and then execute that refused donations will be sent to other projects or returned. I don't think this is that big of a problem.
You could have avoided the entire controversy by taking the entirely reasonable step of honoring the initial request to be opted out.
I think sticking with opt-out is ok since it will be the difference in having a million projects or 3 projects. But, it means you have to be more considerate of the project owners requests. Thinking that the emails "weren't that bad" is more evidence that you aren't listening very well.
> "I think sticking with opt-out is ok since it will be the difference in having a million projects or 3 projects.
There is a difference between "right" and "convenient for tip4commit". Assuming that no project maintainer wants to be part of tip4commit, should they all be made to opt-out? I'd argue that it is tip4commit that have to make a case for themselves and convince stakeholders of their benefits. Avoiding marketing by choosing defaults that are convenient for you but possibly a nuisance to your stakeholders is a very arrogant and short-sighted position to take.
I don't know if this happens often but I would like to take a moment and point out that after hearing a strong negative reaponse, It's nice to see that the developer is willing to work through the problems with the community to change his/her project to a better state.
These "funding" schemes keep popping up in different contexts. Journalism attracted a bunch of these schemes 5 to 10 years ago. Consider what Mike Krahulik said about Kachingle:
"you can't just start collecting money for me without some kind of deal."
Kachingle was an extreme case, gathering "donations" for sites like Wikipedia, Google News, and also small sites like Mike Krahulik's. Using this approach on Github is just a new variation on an old scam. As someone else said in that same thread:
"that is the weirdest creepiest business model ever."
I really don't understand the hate and anger that seems to be being directed at the developer, in particular the constant stream of assertions that the project is a scam, fraudulent, and created with the intent of cashing out with everyone's donations after pretending to be 'hacked'. It seems like this sort of accusation is more likely to be a cause for legal action _by_ @arsenische rather than the flimsy pretexts for legal action _against_ them. The developer seems to have created this during a hackathon as a fun little project demonstrating what can be achieved using the GitHub APIs and Bitcoin; I'm quite impressed at the end result, to be honest. I don't have any real need for the service, since my employer pays for me to work on open source projects anyway, but if I was wanting to raise beer money from a side-project I don't see any reason not to consider it. As for the opt-in mechanism, it looks like they have resolved most of the issues, and many of the complainants have never interacted with the project until reading about it here - the number of complaints about SPAM and assertions of illegality are amazing, all from people who have never received an email from tip4commit. These days it seems laughable to complain about unsolicited email - perhaps it was a problem in the days of USENET when messages cost real money to deliver over expensive leased lines and dial-up connections, but today with filtering and cheap bandwidth it makes no sense...
The outright refusal to de-list projects makes this seem very suspicious.
It makes it seem like they want to capitalize on well-known oss projects, and more or less trick people into giving money, when there's no clear entity behind the service and no clear rules about what happens with "unclaimed" money.
The two obvious explanations here are "scam" and "thoughtless developers". In either case, I wouldn't want any project I was associated with, listed on their page.
tip4commit is one of a number of services which, without asking for permission or notifying you, opt your projects into a BitCoin-based crowdfunding system. Even if your project doesn't want it, even if your project has its own donation/support system you'd like to send people to.
Historically they spammed committers of force-opted-in repositories with an email on every commit to tell them what their new BTC donation balance was after the commit. And they insist that once a repository has been added to their system, they do not have the ability to remove it.
This has legal and tax consequences they seem to be blissfully unaware of, and the best they'll offer is to stop sending you an email every time you make a commit.
We (meaning the Django project) went a few rounds with them a while back and ultimately had to resort to threatening spam complaints against their ISP just to get the damn emails turned off. We still have been unable to get removed from the list of projects they "helpfully" collect donations for:
The link in this thread is another major developer also attempting to get his repositories removed from their "service", and being stonewalled just as we were.
> This has legal and tax consequences they seem to be blissfully unaware of
To make matters worse, they have no idea about or no will to learn about foreign laws.
If they listed any of my projects on their website, I, personally would be considered to be participating in illegal activities in my home country. Regardless of whether I would have ever received any money, asking for donations requires a permit ahead of time here. The police could come knocking on my door demanding for an explanation (they'd probably send a letter, though).
It would be extremely unlikely that I would ever get convicted, but I'd have to spend a lot of effort proving my innocence in something I played no part in.
Besides, looking at this project and the number of similar projects (all using cryptocurrencies), it seems like there are no noble intentions behind this. A lot of the funds donated might never get claimed, which means that the intermediate party could usurp the money because no transparency is involved.
playing devil's advocate: may be tip4commit is not your problem, but rather your country's laws are if these allow to so easily mock anyone and risk of being convicted?
My country has several stupid laws but there's very little I can do to change them (apart from voting).
That doesn't make it OK for someone to run a dodgy "donations/tip/contribution" service, asking for money on my behalf. This could potentially cause problems for lots of people around the world (seems like UK has similar laws too).
Stupid foreign laws don't go away by ignoring them. Running an international service requires you to understand the legislations you operate in.
Your stupid analogy aside, you can't expect to avoid consequences because you were operating without a knowledge of the law. Stand in front of a judge and ask him if you should have guessed that X was illegal and see how far that gets you.
Alright, lets remove tip4commit server from picture. So to put you in jail I just need to find any project you work on, find your name and ask for donations on your behalf? Doesn't this sounds wrong to you?
also, people who downvoting here - make sure to read HN rules about what downvotes are for. They are not to downvote different ideas, but to remove useless posts.
If you set up something to collect donations for exDM69 they might have to explain to the police what was going on.
That takes time, and costs money.
exDM69 can avoid spending that time and money by asking you to stop collecting money for them.
And so now you have a choice: offer to give timy amounts of money to someone who will never accept it; or you could respect that person's wishes by not accepting donations for them. (And that's the honest thing to do for the people giving you the money! If Bob tells you he's never going to accept the money it's dishonest to keep accepting donations for Bob).
> So to put you in jail I just need to find any project you work on, find your name and ask for donations on your behalf?
No, you would not be able to put me in jail. At worst, the penalty would be a fine. But that would not happen in practice.
What would happen is that I receive a letter from the local authorities, demanding me to explain why there are donations being asked for under my name. Responding might need me to get legal advice and perhaps contacting the hosting behind the service to find out who is asking for donations and why.
In other words, that would mean a lengthy paperwork process and perhaps some fees for legal advice. That would be a nuisance.
In other words, it is possible to make life miserable, not jailed. And the only way to be protected against it is to not be know. Security by obscurity. This sounds like an incorrect approach, especially from member of "hacker" community.
> also, people who downvoting here - make sure to read HN rules about what downvotes are for. They are not to downvote different ideas, but to remove useless posts.
Can you show me where it says that in the rules or guidelines or FAQ?
> rather your country's laws are if these allow to so easily mock anyone and risk of being convicted?
Does it really matter, it is a problem for the project owners. This third party claim to have an altruistic purpose yet they end up being a problem. And now you are suggesting to sovle the problem it is somehow more rational for the project owner to either 1) pack up and move to another countr or 2) start lobbying their local legislature to change laws to accomodate whatever this third party (tip4commit) thinks is a more rational approach.
I wonder if you could threaten them with a cease & desist over a trademark violation? (Is there an argument to be made that they are illegally using your trademark to market their service by association?)
Would be interested to hear from someone with a legal background about this.
Best I can tell as a non-attorney acting on advice from others, the way in which they advertise their services could be easily confused as implying a financial relationship with organizations or individuals with whom they do not have a (consenting) financial relationship. Where to go from there is an open question.
The bigger question, as always with such things, is whether they cause enough annoyance to be worth lawyering them, and whether playing whack-a-mole -- since they're not the only "service" which does this -- would be a prudent way to spend time and money.
Sounds plausible. IANAL, but I know there are similar protections for somebody's likeness. As in, you're not allowed to use somebody's likeness to endorse a product without their consent. I can't see why the same wouldn't go for using somebody's trademark to endorse a product without the trademark owner's consent.
This reminds me of a site (the name of which I apparently have washed from my memory, but not manta) that creates a profile for you from your public LinkedIn profile. It showed up in a google search when I was looking for a job, and contained older entries. I had to opt-in, sign up, and edit my information in order for it to be removed. The point everyone here is missing, is that this is the free-market risk of publishing things to the open web.
Deal with the issue some other way. There are unethical people out there who want to make money in crafty ways.
Maybe try reporting every email they send to spamcop? That should give their hosting provider a pretty good incentive to block their email sending privileges.
If minimum donation was say $5 and it notified you one time when you had $25, I do see the people who this would bother being edge cases.
The tax thing is a good point, but I think it would be entirely reasonable and ethical to simply ignore any donations you got if you didn't want them, and not declare them. Perhaps Tip4Commit could auto forward any unclaimed tips to a charity if they are not claimed in a month.
Email spam is another good point, but if it was simply reduced to a one time email when you had accumulated $25 USD I don't see it as unreasonable.
If they implemented the above I'd probably defend them. Right now not so much perhaps, micro cents of tips and lots of emails are understandably pretty annoying.
The fact that they have a site on which they solicit donations for specific projects by name, without the permission of the projects involved, raises legal concerns both for them and for the projects if someone succumbs to the reasonable confusion that projects listed on tip4commit have some sort of fundraising agreement with tip4commit.
I've considered a few times figuring out what it would cost to give them a good once-over with an attorney, just because it seems historically that existential threats to their "service" are the only way they ever give even the minimal response to complaints.
I have no problem with crowdfunded donation services... so long as the person/project the donations are being collected for has consented to it.
I have a large problem with forcibly opting me and projects I work on into this, especially since some of those projects have donation mechanisms already, and an even bigger problem with no way to opt out once in. And I have a huge problem with the implication that I or those projects have any sort of relationship with tip4commit other than one of saying "please stop this" and getting back "no" over and over.
As someone else has already pointed out, they don't even have to pretend to get hacked to get to keep contributors' money. The model of dispensing 1% of balance per commit guarantees that it's impossible to get all of a project's contributions back out again.
In Finland all kickstarter style fundraisers are explicitly illegal, so is this. Basically any collection of money requires a special permit that is only handed to certain charitable causes etc. Otherwise it's paid work and has totally different rules governing it.
In this case the person would have to prove that they're not involved with tip4commit. Quite likely the prosecutor would simply say that you're cheating and are trying to circumvent the law this way. Because how improbable it is that someone would collect money for you even if you wouldn't want to?
So yeah. In some countries it might become a big problem.
I don't think it would work out this way. Looking at tip4commit would make it quite clear that you don't have to be involved. And why would you have to prove that you are not involved instead of having the prosecutor prove the opposite? No not-guilty-until-proven in Finland?
Recently an exhibition called "Beer and Whiskey expo" was under threat due to it's name. Mention of Whiskey can be said to be an advertisement of strong alcohol. So they changed the name and it become just the Beer expo. After that they were informed that they will be denied permits unless individual bloggers with no connection to them would also remove mentions of Whiskey in their posts about the expo.
So yeah. Actions of individuals whom you have no connection with can count against you here. Especially if the regulators think that you might be benefiting of them in some way, thus basically trying to cheat the system.
Remember this. Not every country follows the "innocent until proven guilty" principle.
I'm quite sure it can have consequences (just don't think it will). Some countries have declared bitcoin to be illegal (see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Bitcoin_by_country for details), so it may be enough to participate in a scheme where receiving them is typical to put someone in jeopardy.
As to punishing somebody for actions of others, that is perhaps not typical (although I think some countries actually do punish women for the actions of men, finding examples left as an excercise for the reader). However, you can cause considerable trouble for sending items (say, by international mail) which are legal in your jurisdiction to someone in whose jurisdiction they are not allowed. I'm living in a relatively modern western society, but would still prefer you did not send me cash, drugs or weapons to me with or without my knowledge.
But you did not participate unless you define participate as having your name show up in some database. For your other examples, yes, you can of course become suspect and get some trouble if somebody wants to, but still someone has to prove that you are actually responsible. I meant it in the sense of getting fined, arrested or whatnot, not in the sense of costing you time which may of course not be negligible in serious cases.
In the same way that a company can be 'punished' for not defending a brand name: silence, in the face of knowledge of actions, is taken as tacit acceptance of those actions.
When I wrote the comment I had exactly this in mind, too. But in the case of a trademark you actually agree to this - you are granted the protection but this comes with the obligation to defend it. Or the way you are allowed to drive your care but only if you keep it safe to use.
They will accept donations on behalf of a YouTube channel (or Instagram, Soundcloud, etc.) whether the content creator opted in or not and release the fund when the creator claims his/her donations.
Bounty Source makes it pretty clear the bounties aren't from the project maintainers, and bounties aren't collected or solicited as if they are from or for the project maintainers..
I think the issue here might be Bitcoin. Many sites that deal in Bitcoin get "hacked" and the balances disappear, allegedly into the site operators' pockets.
I was wondering about Flattr as well. You can connect your account to Github, and the owners of repos that you star will be "flattred". I've done this a few times, some that haven't been claimed yet too - I admit it never crossed my mind that it could be nothing but an inconvenience to the recipient.
4 project currently listed under popcorn time.
Great, he just painted an extra bulls-eye on their heads beause now they're making money with the project. Food for lawyers.
The Django project has done their complaint the right way. They asked to be removed, voiced the reason why and then have threatened to open a complaint to the email provider, Mandril, for unsolicited email, i.e. spam. See here: https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/111
This is probably the tactic that people should use for sites that do email mining and unsolicited emails. Good for them.
could someone explain the problem me? I'm not 100% on this service, and I'm not sure I follow the issues here (are they skimming from donations? Is that the problem? Most charities do...)
he says tip4commit is profiting off their project, but, it seems like they're just storing the money till the dev claims it, if he wants it.
Alternatively, what if I were to hypothetically state the following?:
I will give the dev who contributes a pull requests that fixes
this issue: https://github.com/mitsuhiko/flask/issues/1092
10 dollars.
Have I commited an unfair act? Have I violated mitsuhiko in some way? Is the dev that claims this 10 dollars immoral? is mitsuhiko harmed?
I am honestly assuming I'm missing the intricacies here. Could someone explain?
Some countries have strict rules about soliciting or collecting donations.
People in those countries want to avoid the small possibility of legal trouble. They want to opt out of the project.
The project refuses to allow any form of optout.
This means that some people in some countries may have to sepnd time (and this money) talking to police and explaining what's going on.
Dumping this time + cost burden on someone else when they have specifically asked to avoid it is sub-optimal.
As an example of a group who were interviewed by police and who had to explain that their local group was not soliciting donations - the US parent group was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8543640
There was another problem which has since been fixed. The project would send out an email when a tip had been donated, even when it was a tiny donation and even if the receiver was not able to withdraw that tip. This is unsolicited and probably bulk and thus meets the treshold for spam.
Finally it's not really clear what happens to the money. Say you're involved in $OpenSourceProject. Now imagine I donate a few US cents (but in bitcoin) to GhotiFish for a commit you made to $OpenSourceProject and you never collect it. This thread uas clarified that the money goes into a pool for $OpenSourceProject. But what if they never collect it?
Tl:dr get permission from people before you use their name or project-names in your stuff.
Well all that is fair, the devil definitely is in the details here.
I can empathise with the reasons to avoid opt out for them, if they view themselves as a transparent third party, then their perspective would be the same as the suggestion I put forward. That people are putting their money towards a project by their own volition. From that perspective, there's nothing the owner can do about it but ask people not to do it.
My post was made before I had gone through the bulk of text in this discussion, so I can see the issue there.
I have to agree with all your points, but your conclusion and ours are different.
Despite the complications, I don't see why a projects head have an innate right to prevent donations to that projects developers. I keep seeing this sentiment come up over and over. I do disagree with that.
I wanted to tell these guys that they remind me of the infuriating Comcast guy who refused to disconnect the customer's account, until I saw that somebody else felt the same way and had already told them.
These kinds of episodes are making me increasingly depressed.
On one hand, I'm incredibly disappointed in the ethics and morality of some of the people who have latched on to Bitcoin. And sadly, I'd have to include tip4commit in that group, particularly since they are "opt-out" and yet have been spamming people after each commit [ubernostrum points out below that they aren't even "opt-out", since they're not honoring opt out requests]. At best, it's poorly thought out. They may have good intentions, but they've implemented their intentions in a very sketchy manner. Completely unacceptable, and I understand people's anger. Bitcoin has attracted more than it's fair share of assholes, and I understand the frustration people have toward such people and companies.
On the other hand, I'm even more saddened by the irrational hatred so many developers have for Bitcoin, who refuse to acknowledge that not everyone who is interested in Bitcoin is a scammer or lunatic. I have met some incredibly honest, generous, and kind individuals in the Bitcoin community. And the Bitcoin project holds such promise for the financial world, if it's not first destroyed by scammers, regulators, and close-minded developers.
As just one example of what drew me to Bitcoin, Bitcoin holds (or used to hold) such tremendous promise for the developing world, and to people who are shut out of traditional banking. It's bitterly disappointing to me that so many people are intent on destroying Bitcoin because its implications are perceived to threaten their political beliefs, or because of some kind of jealousy toward the imagined wealth of earlier adopters. The contempt around here is palpable, and it's directed toward anyone associated with Bitcoin.
The emotions here are so intense that we have HNers pulling out the DMCA, which is so hypocritical coming from certain people that I am left speechless.
Can we please bear in mind that Bitcoin has many, many ethical, kind, honest developers and users, and that not everyone should be painted with this brush of contempt that some of you wield so recklessly. Bitcoin has the misfortune to have experienced an huge gain in price last winter, which drew in an inordinate number of scammers, opportunists, and speculators. We, the developers and users of Bitcoin, are not to blame for these types of dishonest people. Very often, we are their victims.
If Bitcoin does fail, a large part of the blame will be one the shoulders of so many software and IT people who make a flash decision that Bitcoin was "tulips" or a "ponzi scheme", and who refused to change their minds in the face of evidence otherwise (like scores of established corporations choosing to accept Bitcoin).
I actually worry now that some of my Bitcoin open source contributions in my real name will be held against me now. All my hard work building a great Github repo is going to be discounted because people see contributions to one or two Bitcoin projects in my "contributed to" Github section.
The only reason HNers are pulling out the DMCA is because another project is (unethically or not) using their names to raise funds in a way that they do not permit. That has nothing to do with bitcoin.
Like it or not, the pseudonymous (not anonymous) nature of bitcoin will always attract a high level of illegal and unethical activity. Many people will then use those activities, stories, and experiences to paint bitcoin as a whole. The same holds true for Tor, 4chan, reddit, the internet itself, etc.
> The only reason HNers are pulling out the DMCA is because another project is (unethically or not) using their names to raise funds in a way that they do not permit.
And what does that have to do with the digital millenium copyright act? Using a name without permission in a way that can confuse consumers is a trademark violation, not a copyright violation.
It's horrible that the DMCA has turned into a generic weapon in legal online warfare.
Some open source licenses prohibit the use of the names of contributors to promote a derived product (e.g. 3-clause BSD). Violating that clause could terminate the license to distribute, then the DMCA could be used to stop the unauthorized distribution. Not a lawyer.
It's not about the name thing. It's about the usage of parts of the licensed material without following the license. For example, commit messages, the subtitle, etc.
Theoretically:
* tip4commit violates the license the code is published under (for example if it has a NonCommercial clause).
* The original author is now the only one who has copyright.
* tip4commit is using safe harbor protections (a user chooses to create a page for a project).
* DMCA is now applicable to protect the copyright of the original author.
It doesn't. It would likely fall under trademark law. Could possibly also fall under fraud. But people have come to using 'use the DMCA' for everything involving copyrights, trademarks, and licensing agreements for some reason.
Clarification: they aren't "opt-out". They aren't "opt", period. Once someone types a project name into their search box, it appears that project and its contributors are in their listing, and that's that. Which is sort of the point of the linked issue, and several other issues asking for removal on behalf of individuals and organizations, none of which have been acted on so far as I'm aware, and several of which have in fact been simply denied.
"If Bitcoin does fail, a large part of the blame will be one the shoulders of so many software and IT people who make a flash decision that Bitcoin was "tulips" or a "ponzi scheme", and who refused to change their minds in the face of evidence otherwise "
The same can be said for Bitcoin believers who, in the face tremendous of evidence otherwise (BTC volatility, pleas from respectable folks who study currency and economics, the types of shady characters BTC has attracted), believe it is anything but a flawed implementation of an interesting but possibly bad idea (the blockchain).
Could you explain what you think is flawed about the implementation?
From a technological standpoint the incentives of mining and maintaining full network nodes have led to the first implementation of a public shared data store. Neither Bittorrent, Freenet, nor DHTs of any sort satisfy the conditions of being public, having equal access read and write privileges and data that is always available.
You can't have the benefits of the blockchain without the incentives that the units can operate as a currency and be traded for other things of value. That's what keeps everyone validating and making the data publicly available.
The politics are a completely different beast. The anarcho-capitalists and other anti-government proponents who have claimed Bitcoin as their own are living out a fantasy.
I don't think that Bitcoin is going to be the downfall of the nation-state. I think it's going to allow for some very interesting types of software to be made.
Please don't conflate Bitcoin as a technology with the mad ramblings of a bunch of basement dwellers.
IIRC, most of the flaws of bitcoin are in it's architecture as a Currency. A well designer currency is an efficient medium for the exchange of good and services. Ideally, a currency's utility is how easily and fluidly it can be spent. BitCoin does OK on these metrics.
But where Bitcoin falls down is in the long term model of currencies. Currencies should only be a medium of exchange, not a long term investment vehicle. We want people to spend or invest money in useful things rather than hoard money. Bitcoins deflationary model encourages hoarding, which in turn diminishes the amount of currency in active circulation, resulting in a sub-optimal medium of exchange.
I agree that Bitcoin does not have the ability to replace the day-to-day currencies that most of us use for food and shelter.
I think the general currency or commodity aspects are of less importance than the public ledger.
It's a kind of currency that's main use is in being able to write to a public data store. The most basic data that is stored is value transactions but anything could be stored.
You should really think about it in terms of the kinds of incentives that drive our information economy.
Take a look at Twitter. It operates as a sort of public broadcast medium yet the way that it stores and retrieves leads to vast information asymmetries. Information asymmetries lead to economic asymmetries. Such infrastructure is very costly to operate and leads to perverse incentives to monetize. The information economic model is flawed.
Bitcoin was developed from the ground up with a functional information economic model, regardless of the political expectations of the developers.
First, you have to admit that there is a lot more news about Bitcoin scams and theft than news any good that Bitcoin does.
Second, Bitcoin has not proven its stability and use the way other currencies have. It doesn't have history behind it yet. There are those of us, myself included, who want nothing to do with it until it is proven absolutely-and without-question legal for use in our countries. Just as some raise the question of whether the US dollar is legal, we have the right to question currencies of unknown and unproven provenance.
Third, association with Bitcoin, for me, considering it's questionable provenance, in any way, shape or form is a hassle I do not want. I don't have the time or the resources to invest in exploring that association, and given that uncertainty, I certainly don't want the possibility of potentially having to defend myself to the tax authorities. There's plenty of tripwires there already to catch me unawares and unlawyered and adding another would just make that situation worse. This is not a risk I would want to take.
You obviously feel differently about the situation and that's your risk to take. But it's not your risk to take on my behalf, without my approval.
Which brings us to tip4commit - they've engineered the whole thing to place themselves at risk (their option) and to place the people they want to support at risk as well (not their choice). Whether or not those potential issues are real or not is not the question yet. The point is that tip4commit has zero right to do or say anything that might place me at risk, whether or not that is real.
The US Internal Revenue Service has published guidance on the treatment of bitcoin for tax purposes, and New York has passed bitcoin regulation.
Like these rules or not, in most countries bitcoin's legality is completely clear. There are some that consider it illegal, but most _explicitly_ do not.
I personally purchase almost everything with bitcoin including groceries (Amazon Fresh). I do nothing illegal with bitcoin, and I report my income and capital gains. There is no question as to my bitcoin's provenance, I purchase bitcoin from a public exchange, and keep records of these transactions as I would for stock or a large amount currency exchanges.
I do this because I like bitcoin, because it's very convenient to do these types of online transactions, and because there are essentially no transaction fees. I do not hold funds in bitcoin long for these uses (basically cash transactions), but separately I occasionally hold bitcoin for investment speculation (full disclosure I am not currently holding any bitcoin for investment). However that is unrelated to how I typically use bitcoin on a day to day basis, and I do not recommend bitcoin investment to anyone without a very high volatility tolerance (Although unlike stocks it is easy to hold very small amounts of bitcoin for the learning experience).
In other words it is a completely normal monetary/investment instrument, albeit a new and interesting technology. As for scams I have yet to hear of any bitcoin scams that are not simply cash based scams already common in existing currencies, and I see far more news these days about startups, government review, legitimate ideas for new uses and novel innovations enabled by bitcoin's technology than regarding scams.
Technology that relates to money concerns people, and rightly so. Every bitcoin user I've ever met started as a sceptic, both in terms of the technology and the concepts of money. However, these people then learned how the technology works and become more literate about how economics and monitory theory work, and only then did they start to see and accept the innovation.
The politics and morals of people associated with bitcoin are an entirely tangential discussion, and as with any group it is probably not a good idea to generalize.
Bitcoin is a scheme designed to create a deflationary store of value by wasting electrical energy, co-opted by a vast amount of people who really did look at it like "tulips" and who continue to operate today as if it's a pump-and-dump. You are certainly right to point out that there are a lot of Bitcoin developers and users who are not assholes and have good intentions, but Bitcoin is not the vehicle that's going to work for things like banking in undeveloped countries.
I'm honestly a bit surprised you brought that up, as even with the mining fees needed to pay off the Bitcoin network being subsidized by inflation of the money supply (which is apparently good when it's happening now in accordance with an algorithm that was certainly not determined by a centrali party, but won't be good in 20 years because ???), Bitcoin currently requires about $18 per transaction (https://blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction). And the price is only that low because the value of Bitcoin in USD has been dropping steadily for months. If Bitcoin ever became as popular as its proponents hope then the per/tranx price will go up as well (until the entire network is burning through so much electrical power that more miners can't be brought online to compete in the Mine-a-Block lottery at the new, higher Bitcoin price).
Increasing the number of transactions will help, sure, but it's currently limited to ~7 per second, and although there are technical means of increasing that someday, the Bitcoin lead developer has indicated they probably wouldn't do that anyways (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/10/blocksize-economics/) since then how will the poor miners make money?
And in a future where people actually have to bid their transaction fee high enough to be accepted by benevolent miners just to make it in the blockchain, how are the poor of Africa supposed to compete at all? I'm glad you're worried about them, but don't tie their fate to a network which is designed to be horribly inefficient just so people can say that no trusted third parties were ever utilized in a monetary transaction! Especially in this era of increasing centralization in Bitcoin itself; I don't see how those in Africa were their most-capable computing device is a mobile are supposed to compete with the mining pools and ASIC manufacturer/miners, all you'll have done is traded centralized protocols regulated by the public sector with centralized Bitcoin overseen by the profit-seeking private sector.
I'm not an expert on the wide field of crypto-currency but surely there must be something better out there.
I do love Bitcoin criticism from people who've done their homework. Thanks.
I don't think Bitcoin is meant to be your direct mean of payment for coffee. Centralized solutions are cheaper than decentralized ones. In case of Africa for example, you can have many different competing centralized payment systems. But you can fund them with bitcoin, not depending on government printed money. In developed countries, we have CCs and some wanna-be payment systems, but there's very little competition, mostly because it's very expensive to create such company. You cannot start a new VISA in your garage. That's because of how banking system is constructed. But you can start payment system backed by bitcoin in your garage. More competition = lower transaction fees.
And given your background I'm assuming you already know counterarguments to "deflationary store of value by wasting electrical energy" and just used it to make your point.
Saying that you can fund centralized payment systems with Bitcoin isn't an argument for Bitcoin, it's a solution in search of a problem. Even if you think fiat is completely unacceptable you can fund those centralized payment schemes in Africa with gold, or silver, or cowrie shells, or human urea (not making it up; https://twitter.com/UroFoundation), or any of a million other things that don't require billion-dollar foundries to make the mining hardware you need.
You're right that you can't start a new Visa in your garage, but as it turns out even they have competition, and more than "very little". In any case "garage bootstrap ability" is not a value metric that I hear as a serious talking point that often. Normally we bootstrap things in garages and quickly try to scale them up out of garages (Visa itself was probably started in nothing larger than a Bank of America conference room, after all). And good luck fitting the datacenters behind Chinese-based Bitcoin mining operations in a single garage.
As far as competition alone driving fees down, that only works up to a point (which is why no efficient market has managed zero fees, even in high-competition markets where the profit margins are squeezed very low). For Bitcoin as long as miners can turn a profit for the price of electricity they use, they'll continue to come online to buy tickets in the lottery with KW-hr, so the transaction fees will be based on the delta between the price of electricity and the price of Bitcoin itself, and mining itself will migrate to increasingly more efficient (and centralized) operations with plentiful cheap electricity and cooling as less efficient miners are driven out of business. But at 7 tranx/sec even the most efficient miners won't easily be able to pay for that on pennies/transaction.
And since individual miners collaborating in mining pools will probably never go away (since it's not that expensive to "play the lottery" with only a couple of ASICs on your personal power bill), the efficient mining firms will have to eke out a profit on something less than 100% of the blocks out there, causing them to charge even more per transaction.
At the end of the day the "fundamentals" is that Bitcoin in steady-state will convert electrical power into a distributed ledger without trusted third parties (except, of course, for the centralized miners themselves...), and that electrical power has to be paid for by the users of the Bitcoin network itself.
Doing the same thing that Bitcoin does today with distributed networks that are orders of magnitude more power-efficient (even if they did utilize trusted third parties) would result in a much, much cheaper financial network, which would be even that much better for the poor of Africa (and that much easier to drive to near-zero fees by competition).
After all, those transaction fees for Bitcoin don't pay for anything than keeping the ledger up to date, and don't include insurance fees for things such as fraud, scams by the counterparty, and a host of other things that are accounted for in the fees that Visa and its many competitors charges.
Transaction fees aren't relevant for average Joe. Most payments would be happening off chain within those centralized systems. You only need transaction for something like bank-to-bank transfer. With the only difference that you are also your bank and you keep full control of those funds that you didn't put in the centralized service.
I would be perfectly fine with digital currency system backed by gold. Only that there's no way to make it work. People tried. You need some 3rd party that you need to trust and you are never really in control of your funds.
CPU, storage and network capabilities are keep growing which should be making transacting those 0s and 1s cheaper and cheaper. And regarding cost of the network, it's really low based on what does it accomplish. It's just that you can estimate this total cost, while not being able to do that for say total cost of inside parties at Chase.
This is all just my opinion, but as I said, I see bitcoin mostly as a decentralized storage of value. From that, you can fund your account of 3rd party payment system (without giving them your personal info or ability to spend the rest of your funds), and then you spend your money within that system. It can offer fraud protection, insurance and whatever you want. There can be also those that don't provide it, but offer even lower transaction fees. But since it's centralized system and it's just moving data I would assume they will be able to make it happen for below 2% of payment value.
"scores of established corporations choosing to accept Bitcoin"
What percentage of these established corporations "accept" bitcoin through VC-funded startups (which are gambling on the possibility of rising bitcoin value), receiving dollars and never actually holding a bitcoin?
> What percentage of these established corporations "accept" bitcoin through VC-funded startups, receiving dollars and never actually holding a bitcoin?
Basically all of them. No established company wants the associated risk to actually hold bitcoin.
Overstock uses Coinbase for checkout and converts the majority of it to dollars immediately. They have recently begun to hold about 10% of sales made in Bitcoin as Bitcoin and have disclosed this as a risk in their latest 10-Q to investors. Bitcoin accounts for 0.25% of sales, so they're keeping 0.025% of revenue as Bitcoin.
While many may argue the prudence of such a decision (and subsequent disclosure), it's important they disclose this as their Bitcoin holdings lost about 1/2 their value in the last quarter. Any major company keeping any significant percentage of their sales revenue or cash holdings as Bitcoin would be exceedingly irresponsible.
Are you going to disclose too that Bitcoin went up 300% since last year? Or you prefer to cherry-pick a shorter time period to make it fit your narrative?
Yes, they are. But only recently, and only a small relative about. I'd forgotten that they'd started doing it a couple months back. That's why I said 'basically all of them', because every other major site I'm aware of that accepts bitcoin doesn't hold any bitcoin. It's immediately converted to dollars at sale time because holding bitcoin for even part of a day is a huge and completely unnecessary risk for a retailer.
The timeframe I mentioned is relevant to Overstock because they were not holding any bitcoin last year. They only began accepting it this year and only began holding it more recently. So only its recent (poor) performance is relevant to Overstock and its investors. As such, it would appear to have been a bad decision in the short term.
I'm not the one in this back and forth who is cherry-picking. Bitcoin up over a different timeframe (a year, since inception, etc) is irrelevant to Overstock, just as its drop to 1/2 of its value over the last few months may be less relevant to your Bitcoin holdings.
Full disclosure: I hold .24826531 Bitcoin personally and in conjunction with my open source project and run Bitcoin Core 0.9.3 64-bit on Windows.
They weren't accepting bitcoin when it was 1/3rd the current price so that figure is irrelevant(also over the past year it is now only up 50% and will be down in less than 2 weeks without some major upwards movement). They started accepting it in January when it was ~300% higher than it is now.
Who cares? It's no different to accepting Euros but getting dollars in your bank account. The point is that they allow users to spend bitcoins (or Euros).
Widespread use of the Argentine peso isn't critical for its success (a strong economy and good monetary policy is). Widespread use is, however, critical for Bitcoin's success, since it relies on a network effect of merchants and consumers.
It certainly isn't bad news.. not to say ARS isn't likely doomed; but there are currencies not on that admittedly-long list of amazon accepted currencies.
OK? I agree with you. I never claimed they were holding it. Lots of Bitcoin-accepting businesses don't hold Bitcoin, and instead use it as a payment processor.
I don't see the problem with it. They still accept Bitcoin, no scare quotes needed.
The point is that a corporation "accepting" Bitcoin is not an endorsement by the corporation for Bitcoin. And even if it were, corporations are hardly the pinnacles of ethics and legality.
Who said anything about ethics? Corporations accepting Bitcoin is evidence of its usefulness.
And by the logic you guys are espousing, then e-commerces don't accept any currency that isn't the one their government forces them to use either, because they do it through intermediaries like Visa.
>>Who said anything about ethics? Corporations accepting Bitcoin is evidence of its usefulness.
I don't buy that either. The only thing it is an evidence of is that said corporations want to attract customers of a specific demographic. Overstock.com CEO himself is a libertarian, for example. If it wasn't for him I strongly doubt they would have implemented Bitcoin payments on their site.
I mean, if Bitcoin is so useful, why have sites that have implemented it have done a miniscule if not virtually negligible amount of sales through it?
From Bitcoin's own FAQ [1]: "One could argue that gold isn't backed by anything either. Bitcoins have properties resulting from the system's design that allows them to be subjectively valued by individuals. This valuation is demonstrated when individuals freely exchange for or with bitcoins. Please refer to the Subjective Theory of Value."
Like it or not, Bitcoin has a PR problem. It needs be liked and trusted in addition to "extremely useful, in principle." For all of the grumbling about central banks, most of us enjoy the benefits of them and trust them at some gut level, even if we don't realize we're doing it.
> If Bitcoin does fail, a large part of the blame will be one the shoulders of so many software and IT people who make a flash decision that Bitcoin was "tulips" or a "ponzi scheme", and who refused to change their minds in the face of evidence otherwise
It might also fail, in part, because the community failed to realize that a quasi-fiat currency like Bitcoin has to solve the social problems at least as much as it needs to solve the technological ones.
Bitcoins are worthless precisely because the Subjective Theory of Value is wrong. Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith and all the early economists thought the Subjective Theory of Value was wrong. Because it is wrong.
Bitcoin is a little scam which justifies itself against the backdrop of a much bigger scam.
Gold is valuable because it takes effort to find, mine and refine. People want to exchange other valuable things for it because it is useful - dentists use it to fill teeth, it is used as an electronics coating since it conducts electricity well, and so forth. People have used gold as a currency for thousands of years, but that is only because it has traits that make it a good commodity, such as durability, portability, uniformity and divisibility.
Bitcoins have no value of this type. Which is why it has fallen from $1160 to $326, and will fall to $0.
> Gold is valuable because it takes effort to find, mine and refine.
Other way around, people spend effort to find, mine and refine gold precisely because it's subjectively valuable.
That's always been the ironic thing to me about Bitcoin, is that by establishing that people can attach subjective value to things (like computer bits), it proves that fiat currencies can work too precisely because subjective value exists.
Likewise I doubt Bitcoin would ever fall all the way to $0, simply because there will always been enough believers "holding the bag" and trying to loop people into the "Internet funbux" club to maintain the value at some low (but non-zero) level.
Precious metals are a commodity like any other commodity. They are valuable because people had to spend effort finding and mining them, and because people find them useful enough to exchange other valuable commodities for them. Their price, measured across decades going thousands of years back, is tied to their use value.
It is true the prices can be manipulated over the short term - in 1979, the Hunt brothers made silver go from $6 an ounce to $48 an ounce before it crashed back down. Over the long term though, the value of commodities are tied to their value - how hard it is to find and mine gold, and whether people find it useful enough to exchange other valuable things for it.
In other words, their subjective value? Gold has no value to me at all, as I don't have any use for it. If you tried to sell me gold, the only reason I'd buy it is if I could immediately resell it for a profit. My subjective value of gold is, therefore, $0.
The price of gold is not really determined by it's subjective value. It's determined by the cost to mine the stuff. The reason 5 lbs of potatoes cost like $5 and 5 lbs of gold costs like $90,000 is because that's what it costs to dig them up even if you prefer the potatoes.
If you were starving on a desert island I'm willing to bet you'd pay significantly more than $5 for 5lbs of potatoes if need be, because of their subjective value.
Likewise, people spend $$$ to mine gold because it's (subjectively) worth $90,000 for 5 lbs. If gold was as effectively rare as it is today, but easier to 'harvest' when you did find it, it would likely be worth about as much as long as all the other subjective factors still held.
Even today Saudi Arabia can pump oil for obscenely low prices (single digit USD per barrel), but it still sells near the market rate.
Congrats, you just decided that gold miners are the most altruistic people in the world, charging people only what it costs to mine the gold, not what the market would bear. I wish other companies could be so generous!
Also, I would recommend "Making Money" by Terry Prachet. Good book that actually explores a lot of the same ideas behind gold as the basis of a currency. In essence, the main character eventually realizes that the gold doesn't actually mean much, the true value of currency is that the society says x money gives you y goods.
Ah - that was a simplification. If it costs $1000 to mine and sells for $2000 then short term the miners will make a profit but long term people will build more mines. This is a slow process - 10 or 20 years but eventually supply exceeds demand, the price drops to $700 or some such, the miners go bust and the cycle repeats. But generally the price stays within a factor of two or so of the production cost.
so you talk about supply and demand, yet think cost is set purely by suppliers? What do you think would happen to the cost of potatoes if only 10% of last years harvest was harvested this year. It would go up, but only to the point where the supply vs. demand equalized, i.e. 90% of people wouldn't be buying potatoes cause they cost way too much, but there would be 10% of the people(like my wife) who would still be willing to buy them at $50 for 5 pounds, cause she values potatoes that much(she's got a serious fixation on potato soup). I.e. the value of a good depends on the person doing the valuing, i.e. subjective value.
It is also very difficult and expensive to dig into the ground with your bare hands and fish out worms, but if you did so you wouldn't be able to charge huge amounts of money for your hand-fished worms. Why? Because worms have almost no subjective value.
My wife's dentist didn't use gold for her teeth, Copper and silver are better conductors. Gold's only useful quality is that it doesn't tarnish. Ask yourself this, on a desert island, what's more valuable, 5 pounds of potatoes or 5 pounds of gold? I'd pick the potatoes, myself. Sounds like the value is subjective to me...
sure, but I think the point was that if suddenly everyone stopped trading gold it could still be useful to someone. Whereas if everyone stopped trading bitcoin it would not be useful to anyone.
everyone stopping trading gold would only happen if everyone stopped using gold, so how is it still useful. Imagine, if you would, a machine that can make as much of something as you want, replicating it from nothing. Put gold through it. Is there anything about the gold that would prop it's value up above the pure value of the effort required to push the button? If gold is valued because of both scarcity and subjective value, what makes bitcoin any different? It has scarcity, and people subjectively value it.
>[gold has] durability, portability, uniformity and divisibility.
You could argue bitcoin effectively has those qualities too. It also has a cost to mine which may peg its cost in the same way that the cost to mine gold does its.
The thing that worries me about bitcoin as an investment is it can be replaced easily by dogecoin or whatever-coin with basically the same properties whereas there is nothing else quite like gold.
>As just one example of what drew me to Bitcoin, Bitcoin holds (or used to hold) such tremendous promise for the developing world, and to people who are shut out of traditional banking.
First 20 minutes goes into detail on how useful Bitcoin really is in the developing world.
In short, if you've got access to a data plan and a smartphone you're not going to be unbanked. And if you are unbanked, you're not going to have access to a smartphone and a data plan.
Bitcoin is only actually useful in countries with the infrastructure to support it.
As someone who lives in Argentina, Bitcoin is extremely useful. I have a smartphone, but banks don't really want me. Not that I could benefit much from them anyway, since I'm not even allowed to make international wires, and I can't legally buy US dollars either to escape the 30% inflation we suffer here.
It's crazy to see how much time you, a UK citizen who finds Bitcoin only useful for buying illegal drugs (by your own words), invest in attacking Bitcoin. I thought your limit was Reddit, but now I see you are also spending time on other sites like HN under the same name doing the same thing almost as a full-time job. No wonder some people think there is a paid smear campaign going on against Bitcoin.
As someone who has lived in a "developing" country, I disagree. I'm talking about potential here, not the current situation.
And a lot of the early failures of Bitcoin in developing countries were the result of overzealous Bitcoin supporters rushing into a developing country with no prior experience, and then running into some of the inevitable problems (e.g., no reliable electricity).
If it's going to work in these situations, it's going to have to happen from within, not imported by outsiders.
In what developing country besides Kenya is there widespread mobile banking?
One advantage Bitcoin already has over m-pesa is that Bitcoin is an international currency, whereas m-pesa is confined to East Africa. This means that people in developing countries that sell their goods or services for Bitcoin have access to a currency limited, yet fully international market.
Here in Uganda where I currently live mobile banking is used by pretty much everyone. Mobile solutions like m-pesa and airtel money is used by most of my Ugandan friends.
From what I have seen some of the main advantages of mobile banking are: 1. You can manage your account with any phone. Most people here just use gsm phones.
2. Opening an actual bank account is expensive. Not expensive from my western point of view. But from the perspective of local people it is.
3. It is easy. Mobile carriers are everywhere. And since cash is still the way of handling most money transfers it is very convenient to be able to, even when you are in a village in the middle of nowhere. Go to a place with the "airtel money" sign and get cash so that you can buy that roasted cassava.
As someone who lives in Mexico, I beg to disagree. Many unbanked have access to smartphones and data plans, unlike your country most don't buy into multi year contracts with carriers and don't require banking for cellular service, which many use as their primary number instead of a landline (which also doesn't require a bank account).
> If Bitcoin does fail, a large part of the blame will be one the shoulders of so many software and IT people who make a flash decision that Bitcoin was "tulips" or a "ponzi scheme"
Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. That people think they have any value shows they have a fundamental misunderstanding of value. This group might include a lot of people, but the number of people who owned over-priced houses in 2008, or dot-com stock in 2000 was large as well.
HN'ers talk about how they are sober, logical, rational people who can see business (and engineering) opportunities that "traditional" business and finance can not. So Bitcoin is a good lesson in this regard, since the snake oil seems to have infected Silicon Valley like some west coast est cult, with lots of major VC's singing the praises of this scam they are running. Even people not interested in Bitcoins should pay attention to this aspect of Bitcoins, as familiarity with these scams is useful. You can see major VC's lying about the future of Bitcoin, the cluelessness of so many people here and so forth. Aside from understanding scams, you'll understand that there are some people, such as myself and others talking about tulips and ponzi etc., who understand the concept of value. The people hyping the Bitcoins, which will inevitably go to $0, do not understand value, but despite this, nothing will really change. The majority will still listen to the big VC and angel con artists peddling this type of scam, those of us who were prescient about it will be ignored - though inevitably proved wrong on Bitcoin, the VC scammers will still be considered "right". This will be one of the more instructive lessons, not that of Bitcoin. One of these more instructive lessons is that the VCs are fundamentally wrong about why a currency or commodity has value. We understand value, they don't, but that knowledge only helps us avoid scams like Bitcoin for now. They hold the microphone and those of us who are right will be marginalized even when proved correct. It's kind of like how Richard Dawkins, who is correct about reality, logic, Christianity and so forth, is a marginalized figure, because preachers shaking down their congregations for tithes and money are who have the microphone and the power. But in this case we're not talking about delusions infecting uneducated, rural yokels, we're talking about delusions that infect the educated, well-to-do denizens of the Bay Area. Bitcoin is down 7% today, and way down from last November, when Bitcoin was trading at $1160, and no matter how much the bagholders on HN downvote my karma, nothing will stop Bitcoin's drop from that $1160 peak last November to today's $326, to it's inevitable proper price of $0.
I've talked about WHY Bitcoin is worthless in previous posts, but to reiterate - the question is WHY is Bitcoin valuable? Ask that simple question before buying a Bitcoin, or spending thousands to get an ASIC on backorder (the major Bitcoin ASIC sellers, Butterfly Labs, were raided by the feds recently due to fraud). There is no answer. "It's valuable because people are buying it right now" is not a real answer. You could say that about new Sacramento real estate developments in 2008, or Pets.com stock in 2000. It's a tautological argument - if people are buying it for $326, according to that theory, it's worth that because people will pay that, if it drops to $2, it's worth that because people will only pay that. It's a tautological argument.
Commodities have a real value. Real, long-term currencies are just commodities with traits that make them good currencies. The traits are things like durability, portability, uniformity and divisibility. People have been trading for thousands of years, so what has been a currency for thousands of years? Gold has been one of the most popular - not because it is different than other commodities, other than those mentioned traits which make it a good currency. All of the precious metals make decent currencies.
Half a century ago US currency was paper with no inherent value, but with the promise that one could trade it for gold that was held in Fort Knox and other places. So through all these thousands of years, currency was tied to a real commodity, a precious metal. Bitcoin does not have such a link.
Of course in 1971, Nixon broke the link between Federal Reserve notes and gold. Other major currencies followed suit. Some Bitcoin advocates point to that event and say Bitcoin can float on thin air as well. Why that is not so is too much to go into in an HN comment. Suffice it to say, the US government holds over 10,000 tons of gold in Fort Knox and other places. If US currency ever began to collapse, a simple announcement that dollars were convertible to that gold at a certain price would stabilize the currency. Why does the US government spend all that money to hold 10,000 tons of gold? It's understood that that gold still backs US currency, in a more abstract, unpromised way. There are no 10,000 tons of gold backing Bitcoin.
It is valuable because it is a shared public data store with equal access read and write privileges. Data stored in it is available, partitionable and eventually consistent. It works due to the economic incentives of being rewarded for validating transactions.
Prior to Bitcoin there were no shared public data stores that satisfied these requirements. Bittorrent and Freenet are not guaranteed to have data availability. That is, you can't always get what you stored. DHTs only work when they are centralized and are susceptible to a number of different attacks when operated with general public access.
The only way to interact with this data store is by being in control of Bitcoin. That is what gives value to the units of account.
I understand what you're saying. The only problem is what data is in that decentralized, available, secure data store. The only data allowed in is self-referencing data. Most people don't care about the Bitcoin data store. If I could access, say, Gutenberg.org books in that data store, or something of that nature, I and others would find more value in it.
On the other end of that, processing, not data, there are distributed processing projects out there finding the optimal golomb rulers, looking for pulsars, how protein folds etc. There could be value in a distributed project processing these and other projects. All of Bitcoin processing is self-referential though, it does not allow for this potentially more valuable processing.
What you're describing would be valuable, but not if the only data storable is self-referencing. People don't buy 1 terabyte disk drives that already store Bitcoin blockchain history. They pay for hard drives because they will store the information they want to store and retrieve on them.
I personally believe that there is intrinsic value in just the self-referential nature of Bitcoin transactions but what's important to realize is that the transactional nature of Bitcoin is what allows for the entire system to work, regardless of what is built on top of it.
A basic transaction of "A sent X to Y" might not be as valuable as a poem, but it still has some level of value.
If digital currencies focused more on this type of thing, they might actually stay around for a while longer. This is something I can see the value and usefulness of. A Bitcoin competitor focused around things like this, and perhaps allowing people to pay for non-blockchain mass processing power, might actually be viable in the long term. Because it would be actually useful and valuable.
>If digital currencies focused more on this type of thing, they might actually stay around for a while longer. This is something I can see the value and usefulness of.
There's about as much point in having a competitor to Bitcoin as there is in have a competitor to the World Wide Web.
There is an incredible amount of infrastructure built up around Bitcoin. There are currency exchanges all over the world. There are thousands of software libraries and applications. These network effects are very real.
The only way to build the types of extensions that you deem valuable are on top of the existing primitive infrastructure.
It's a shame that there is so much political rhetoric clouding the the real value. It kept me from discovering this stuff for the longest time!
Bitcoin has no value. It has a price, but not a value. Dutch tulip bulbs, 2008 Sacramento real estate devlopments, Pets.com stock all had prices at some point, but their value was always less than its price.
Saying that the value is way less than the price, is not the same as something having no value (your first sentence).
Your examples contradict your first point.
Tulips have value today, a lot less than the bubble. Sacramento real estate has lots of value today. Pets.com was worth something even when it went bankrupt, even as little as it might have been.
$4.3 billion isn't a very big bubble besides. Not even a drop in the ocean of global currencies.
Bitcoin has value because it's the best and often the only way to buy drugs (scheduled and prescription) online.
>It's understood that that gold still backs US currency, in a more abstract, unpromised way.
This has nothing to do with value. Gold is almost completely useless - its value is overwhelmingly due to speculation. Dollar is backed by enforceable debts. No better backing is possible. With gold, you're only hoping that somebody will buy it from you, for unclear reason.
A Ponzi scheme is an investment scheme in which new capitol is used to pay investor returns. Since Bitcoin is not an investment vehicle and does not promise a return, it cannot be considered a Ponzi scheme.
Your bitcoin contributions will be honored and recognized by whatever blockchain based system replaces it. Bitcoin might die, but the blockchain will never go away.
I started a project called Issue-Bidder (https://issue-bidder.com/) with the same concept before I even knew that bountysource (and meanwhile also tip4commit) existed.
I do not collect any repositories from Github but rather let the users manually submit a repo to Issue-Bidder.
And at this point I think there is only one reason why bountysource does the opposite: For marketing reason – or better let's say this straight-out: the intention to make money. Guess what, the opensource community (speaking as a set of all specific communities) is a high potential and open market. Everybody is able to move mountains if you're ruthless enough. Let's just take this post on reddit as an example: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/2dsvme/someone_stol... and I'm sure tons of other example cases exist out there.
In my opinion we can compare bountysource and all the other vultures out there with the financial brokers back in the 90' (why did I even set a filter to the 90' anyways?).
Should we now all hate them? Or are we now just hating around because we are naive and didn't restrict all our repos and do believe in the positive aspects of this high potential market called opensource?
I disagree. He explicitly consented to everybody doing whatever they want with the software.
I just don't think it's fair to allow people to do one thing and then make them feel bad about it once they do it.
---
Let me clarify a couple of things here so I don't have to write short replies to all of you.
Let's start with the 3-clause-BSD license. It states that you aren't allowed to use the names of the contributors to endorse derived works. They don't do any of that so this is not an issue.
Somebody brought up trademarks. If there's a trademark issue the legal situation should be clear and this issue should resolve itself in no time. Nobody likes lawsuits. I don't see how they violate any trademarks though.
Somebody else brought up handles. This has always been an issue. It seems to boil down to if you like a project, it's okay for them to use somebody else's handle, if you don't, it's unacceptable. I don't think it's a good idea to build a moral argument on top of that. I'm pretty sure I'm guilty of this myself.
The money/tax thing is very interesting. I really wouldn't know, but I don't think you can collect money on someone else's behalf. As in, it only becomes a tax issue/your money once you actually accept the money.
If you're one of the people who think "GitHub should just shut these scumbags down" we might as well start shutting down political parties, newspapers and TV station we don't like. I don't want to live in a world like that.
What upsets me the most is the fact that it becomes harder and harder to have a discussion about topics like this one. What's the point in having a discussion platform if everybody is expected to agree anyway? And even worse, if you don't immediately state that you don't support someone/something you're guilty by association somehow.
Your focus on the software and license (which continues in your clarification) is more a demonstration that you haven't understood the situation than it is disagreement with anything being discussed. The complaint is Please remove my repositories from the website and do not add a way to add them again. I do not value third party websites gameifying my projects, but where it says "repositories", it is not talking about copies of the software, it is talking about listings on tip4commit.com that look(ed!) like they were collecting donations for mitsuhiko/*.
Maybe my other replies will make more sense in that light.
(the (ed!) is because they at least have stuck up a disclaimer saying the projects don't like the funding)
The reason I felt the need to explain the legal situation is that some people seem to think there's an objective right/wrong here and that's just not true.
Furthermore, I believe the reaction to this issue is way over the top. The tip4commit people seem very well intentioned in that they created a website for people to donate to open source projects. They might be stubborn and adding the disclaimer might have taken a couple of days to long, but I don't see how any of this justifies so much hate.
Your explanation of the legal situation comes out of nowhere. It's not related to why people find the website so distasteful (I think I've tried to explain that enough already). I'm wondering if you are being deliberately obtuse about this.
The best thing tip4commit could do to demonstrate their very well intention would be to quickly listen to anybody who asks them to remove the offer to collect donations (that is, simply listen to the thunderous frustration rather than wondering where all the hate is coming from while trying to explain how they are just doing this nice thing).
The insight that they were not well intentioned for the projects they supposedly wanted to help. This was a project which explicitly asked them to fix a problem. Not any problem, it was a very serious one. They refused.
Armin tends to BSD-license his work. And the BSD license includes a provision which forbids use of contributor names for endorsement/promotion without permission.
So, no, "consent" is not what Armin did. In fact, he did the opposite of that.
> The names of the contributors may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
As far as I can tell (!) there are no products derived from the software. Neither do they mention the names of the contributors. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The consent isn't about the software, it's about the name/handle.
Whatever the legal specifics might be, I think you'll find that an awful lot of people think it is obnoxious to collect money (or so) on behalf of someone else without having them agree to it first.
You say I'm pretty sure you can't collect money on other people's behalf though.
What is it you think tip4commit is doing that is being objected to if not collecting money for someone else? Bitcoin are close enough to money for the purposes of what I was saying.
I think you're right. In spite of the many good points that people are debating with this issue, there's clearly a witch-hunt dynamic going on here. I'm seeing a lot of comments with perfectly valid opinions getting down-voted just because people don't agree with them. I think people just need to sit this one out and let the actual stake holders work it out.
You know what really helps open source developers? Annoying them until they say f-it. Not only is os its own sort of challenge, but then you get a ghetto bitcoin angle going on it... and these tips sort of amount to shit. Big contributors (likely alternatively funded well beyond the tips) don't see much and small contributors get fuck all. And that unclaimed currency goes back to the "project?" Stop.
Here's an interesting one. They only email contributors when they have over 0.005 BTC sitting around. So any contributor who over their lifetime is donated less than 0.005 BTC is never told that the money has been given to them.
So we can reasonably expect that almost all the money put into this service will end up sitting around and not going to the people it's supposed to help.
"each new commit receives 1% of available balance"
So if you put a dollar in the account, even after 100 commits there's still 36 cents leftover (assuming every commit is "claimed"). Which is to say, by construction most of this money is going to remained unclaimed.
Even ignoring all the legal implications, it's pretty damn rude to reach out to people contributing to open source projects on their own free time without asking for anything in return and offer them a few measly dollars for hours of work.
In fact, this communicates entirely the wrong information about the value of their work. If I were looking to encourage people to work on open-source projects, I certainly wouldn't try to entice them with a pittance too small to even buy a pack of gum.
Exactly. As an active open source contributor I'll be very insulted if someone offers this to me without me opting in.
If I want money I look for jobs or clients. Literally any other job in the world will pay more than this ever will. I'm not doing open source for the money.
I'd be delighted to receive even a dollar for the work I did for free. If an old lady gives you 0.50$ for carrying her groceries up the stairs you just take it to aprecciate her apprecciacion.
If open source parasites like tip4commit don't learn, the next logical step is to trademark projects and send DMCA notices without wasting any further time.
Also, with this kind of sleazy behavior, the advertising clause in the BSD license suddenly becomes very appealing again.
Consider that some of the projects they collect on "behalf" of already have donation mechanisms in place, both from a technical and legal perspective, and would prefer to see those mechanisms used.
And that is a choice they get to make because it's their project. They also don't accept mitten donations as far as I know. Are you going to collect mittens from people on their behalf and email every committer to receive their mittens?
Overloading productive open source devs with spam and administrative bullshit is parasitic. (Allegedly) collecting money after a project has told them to stop is parasitic at best.
Not all open source developers want money for their open source software. You think collecting money using someone else's hard work isn't a bad thing. A hard work that the person explicitly went to the trouble of making free and abstained from any income derived solely from it.
This project is only directly, which violates indirectly. Lots of people don't want to be paid directly for their open-source projects.
Mainly because that's precisely what open-source isn't: it's not distribution of software services. There isn't a consumer-producer relationship.
Indirectly is what works great: someone with a vested interest pays an open source developer for his expertise to make sure the open source project continues on. The developer is backed by the full extent of labor laws, welfare services and all other work-related niceties her or his country might have. Or the developer provides a service with clear boundaries which other people pay for, helping provide income for the project's developer and possibly giving it guidance.
Directly there's none of that. There's only people giving money to someone who now has to bear the full legality of it, unaware of the purpose or source of said money. If they don't want it, don't force it on them. Not to mention most projects which want money already have a system set up for it, a system which they explicitly decided was the best for them.
There are loads of other ways to support open source developers other than forcibly putting them in a situation in which they need to hire a lawyer.
I agree that an open source developer can object to donations on a personal level and I think it's a very reasonable request to personally unsubscribe from communications from some entity.
What I don't agree with is complaining that you're being spammed after you put your contact information in the public domain and receive a notification that somebody would like to give you money. I also don't agree that a "project owner" should get to deny any potential contributors to receive donations based on his own personal objections.
First I don't agree a request should be made to unsubscribe. There shouldn't have been anything to unsubscribe from.
Second it's not the project owner's fault simply because their contact information is out and about. You're saying spamming people with promises of money that has their legal name attached to is just fine and it's the people's fault they allowed themselves to get spammed.
The worst thing, even, is that the people doing the donating have no idea if their money actually got to the person they intended it to.
> I also don't agree that a "project owner" should get to deny any potential contributors to receive donations based on his own personal objections.
This is the part I most strongly disagree with. You're trampling over people's livelihoods, principles and personal choices. Accepting donations has legal repercussions. Legal repercussions the top4commit owners wilfully disregard and have no intention of paying attention to. There are countries with laws that'd make the open source developer liable to damages and tax evasion.
That is only the legal part. The principle part is that many people don't write open source software to get paid from it. They have abdicated from gaining monetary advantage from distribution of knowledge. If you want to pay them, hire them and pay them for their expertise. It's a personal choice, one that is being disrespected here.
This project should simply work on consent-only or be dismantled. Remove all current repositories and advertise to gain project owners who actually want to be there. The people who created tip4commit have no legal expertise or intent to get legal advice, they're not helping the Open Source community, and most of all they have no transparency or accountability in the event of fraud.
Agreed. This behavior is not benign "naughtiness" (as the YC guys like to encourage), it's parasitic exploitation of other people's hard work. Another group I'd lump in with this group is readthedocs.org
Why you put Read The Docs in the same category? RTD doesn't host anything unless you specifically set up an account and say you want to use them. They don't troll the web looking for projects, and hosting their docs whether they want them to or not.
I put readthedocs in the same category because they try to look like the original source of the documentation. They lift the content and style, lock stock and barrel, and then try to rank higher than the actual project's documentation pages.
I have in the past, unwittingly read out-of-date documentation because it looked exactly like the source site, and I didn't pay close attention to the URL.
If they were truly ethical, they would not try to impersonate the original sites. It fails one of the most basic tests for trademark infringement (which is, essentially: "might someone in a hurry mistake it for the real thing?").
Erm... RTD does none of those things. There's a default site theme that is specific to RTD - they don't try to impersonate anyone. They don't "lift" anything unless the project owner has opened an account and requested that their documentation be hosted on RTD.
I'm at a complete loss how you've even come to the impression that RTD does the things you claim it does - because it does nothing of the sort.
I don't really see a problem with this, and feel it's been blown waaaaaaay bigger than it should have been.
They even included "We are not affiliated with most of the projects, their owners might not endorse use of tip4commit." at the bottom of their frontpage.
Right, seems like it to me. This other stuff about the legitimacy of Bitcoin, taxation on uncollected payments, etc. seems a little over the top.
However, I do think there's an interesting debate on the opt-in/opt-out issue. People are saying that Google itself is an opt-out system, but the "right to be forgotten" seems like a real concern to me.
That would be an interesting way to deal with the developer's response that he add one himself:
"Perhaps there should be a "black list" that prevents certain projects from being added. But I am not yet sure if we should develop this feature since motivation is not clear to me."
I received a tip from tip4commit for a merged pull request to some github repository. The tip was too small to "cash out" on though, and I think I might have needed 40 or more tips like that in order to get a sum that was redeemable.
So basically main point of opposition boil down to:
1. "Don't use my project name to collect money for me!"
Why not use your project name? Did you trademarked it? If not, then it's just public information and you can't control how anyone chooses to use it.
No one is collecting money for you. The guy just collects money and promises to give it to you if you ask. Until you ask it's his money.
2. "Don't spam!"
Well, spamming is certainly in bad taste. I guess he just wanted to make sure people know that he will give them some money if they ask. Probably mistake on his part.
3. "There might be some laws against some of those things in some countries."
So? There are countries that have laws that say that being gay is illegal. Nobody cares about all the laws.
I think it illustrates that you should "do NOT as you would be done by" because you might have different tastes. Personally I'm all for free pennies and all possible schemes of bringing money to developers so they can do what they wan't instead of do what others tell them to do.
I just did. What a bizarre construct. Totally unenforceable. You'll get 'civil forfeiture'-d 50 times at random before IRS will charge you with that and wins. Besides it's not uncashed check. It's verbal (or even virtual) promise made by person in another country. If Nigerian prince offers you 500000$ you just need to claim do you have to pay taxes on that?
> I just did. What a bizarre construct. Totally unenforceable. Y
Oh, well thank god for that.
Whoever might have legal issues with this can just tell the relevant authorities in their country that scotty79 on HN says it's bizarre and totally unenforceable, and that'll shut them right up, won't it.
And, also, hey who gives a shit if the people involved in the various projects want their project associated with this. If there's no legal means to prevent it, then it's 100% ok because there's no such thing as just respecting the wishes of the people involved and being a decent person. After all, those people for put their code out there in public, so they have it coming and fuck them if they don't like it.
Can you seriously not see why people have a problem with this? And why it'd be good for the folks running the site to not automatically include whoever they please in their scheme, and to allow projects to remove themselves if asked?
> Whoever might have legal issues with this can just tell the relevant authorities in their country that scotty79 on HN says it's bizarre and totally unenforceable, and that'll shut them right up, won't it.
Yup. Btw that someone won't care because that will be the day when that someone will get struck by lightning three times, once after each meal, so he'll have much more to worry about.
It's a bit sad and annoying to see educated people with uneducated opinions on something that is as clear as my command line. The guys are not impersonating anyone nor taking any money from anyone. Google is opt-out tool and I don't see anyone complaining. There is absolutely nothing wrong with people bringing extra attention to someone's project and if contributors are going to make money in the process, that's epic.
Yes, they probably should have emailed contributors less often but they've fixed it. Instead of complaining, come up with ideas to make it better... in the end, that's what this kind of community should be all about.
BTW, get your ego's checked... seems like it's a bit inflated... and if you are going to sue anyone, think about your federal income tax... because that money is actually stolen from you :P
I'm really, really surprised and confused by what seems to be the overall sentiment here.
This tipping project was born of a hackathon combining cryptocurrency (cool) and supporting open source projects. Awesome!
Then when people started getting tipped tiny amounts it generated spam... annoying, but it was fixed.
It's a bit outrageous to claim that emailing someone after they have received free money (over some threshold) to invite them to accept it is going over the line.
Claims about taxes, etc.. are laughable. HOW DARE YOU GIVE ME FREE MONEY AND ALLOW ME TO DECLINE IT. Give me a break.
Overall the tone of alexanderz is extremely reasonable. It is not clear to me why the equivalent of a social-site invite being emailed on behalf of some user is suddenly worth getting angry and talking about international spam law. Especially when the exact same opt-out functionality exists. Click one button and never seen another email.. what's the deal here.
I guess the aspect you aren't addressing is that people feel like a listing on the site creates an association between the site and their project (quoting from the bug report I do not want to be associated with this kind of thing.).
You can disagree about whether the listing implies an association and disagree that such an association is a bad thing, but it should be clear enough that there are people who do think it creates an association and that they do not want that appearance.
fair. It seems 'opt-out' is fine to me though and here is why: I want to contribute to some persons tiny little 4-stars github project because it saved my ass.. it is a bit audacious for long-tail repos to be signing up to accept tips; but sometimes my long-tail tip will cross her long-tail repo.
Even more, what does mitsuhiko care if other people are getting money for contributions to his repos. If mitsuhiko is getting spam or seeing stuff in his issue queue despite opting out; that is a serious breach of ettiquite.
It doesn't seem to me this is the case though.. it's like he is angry that other people are getting emails?
I don't think he is angry, I just think he isn't comfortable having his projects listed on sites like this. Read his comments on the bug; they are polite, they explain his perspective, they ask for a specific action, they don't contain insults.
In your scenario, if you actually wanted to tip a meaningful amount, I think it wouldn't be a big deal to simply contact the project directly and see how they wanted to handle it. If you are talking about software users keeping $0.50 tips instead of the projects collecting them, I think that argument is sort of neutral to the opt-in/opt-out question (if a project thinks the combined small tips are worth dealing with, they will likely opt in).
For example, the currently highest-voted comment on /r/bitcoin for the story [0] says "I disagree with him [mitsuhiko]".
[0] http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kz9x0/please_remov...