Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FreeBSD Foundation accepting donations via Pay Pal

Posted by chrisd on from the java-is-more-than-just-an-island dept.

mbadolato writes: "From an email which was sent out to the freebsd announcements list: The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that it is now accepting credit card donations via PayPal. Donations can be made via the Foundation's home page or direct from PayPal. The Foundation's account with PayPal is donations@freebsdfoundation.org. This is a great way to help support a great OS initiative. Funds we donate could be used to help offset the legal fees incurred whilst negotiating the inclusion of Java (as reported on /. recently)"

20 comments

  1. Tax deductible? by jsimon12 · · Score: 1

    Anyone know if these donations are tax deductible?

    1. Re:Tax deductible? by jsimon12 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I just need to learn to read.

      Taken from the FreeBSD donation site:
      Under US tax law, contributions to the Foundation are normally tax-deductible. Contributors are urged to seek professional tax advice to ensure that their particular contributions meet the requirements for deductibility.

  2. too bad by rebug · · Score: 1

    nobody has any money left

    damned xmas.

    --

    there's more than one way to do me.
  3. Paypal is criminal by RGRistroph · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On Dec. 12th they sent me a letter telling me that they were going to not allow me to take money out of my account as of Dec 13th unless I "verified" my account.

    I have had a paypal account for quite some time. I never connected it to a bank or credit card, because I didn't want to (I have canceled most of my credit cards for charging me "credit protection fees" I didn't want, there's only one left, and consumer banking is also a rip-em-off-by-small-fees industry, so I have to switch banks regularly too.) The manner in which I used paypal was I would wait until someone paid me for lunch or dinner via paypal, and then I would use the money mainly to donate to freenet and dyndns.org and other worthy places.

    A roommate paid me rent via paypal one month, and so I was using that account to buy christmas stuff on ebay. I still had about $200 in there when they tried to steal it. Luckily I checked my email before the 24 hour notice was up, and transfered it to someone who had a verified account and I trusted to pay me later.

    Paypal used to have a very nice business plan. You could verify or link your account if you wanted, but you didn't have to; there were no fees, and they earned money from the interest of what was in the accounts. I used to purposely keep a little money in there because I figured it would make sure they made money. I don't understand why they couldn't make that work. Instead, they appear to have abandoned that plan altogether, and are focusing on charging fees and becoming an online debit card.

    Which would be fine, I suppose, but if you let people accumulate money on the presumption they can spend it, you can't freeze the money and keep it. The "service agreement" or whatever doesn't matter much here, there are certain things which are simply against the law.

    For the dubious, here's the email from Paypal:

    (MAIL HEADER DELETED TO GET AROUND LAMENESS FILTER)

    Dear PayPal Member:

    You are receiving this announcement because our records indicate
    that:

    (asterisk deleted to get around lameness) You have funds in your PayPal account

    and

    (asterisk deleted to get around lame ass) You do not have a credit card or confirmed bank account
    associated with your PayPal account

    We want to make sure you are aware of the following policy update,
    which affects your PayPal account and was posted on PayPal\222s Policy
    Updates web page November 29, 2001.

    (LINE OF EQUALS SINGS DELETED IN ATTEMTP TO GET AROUND LAMENESS FILTER)

    Date Posted: November 29, 2001
    Effective Date: December 13, 2001

    To increase the security of the PayPal system, effective December 13,
    2001, members will be required to have a credit card or confirmed
    bank account with PayPal before they can send any payments, even if
    they have funds in their PayPal account.
    (ANOTHER LINE OF EQUALS REMOVED. Jeez. How hard to I have to work to make a fucking post ?)

    To spend the funds in your PayPal account you need to add a credit
    card or a bank account. To add a credit card or bank account, log in
    to your PayPal account and follow the simple steps in the Activate
    Account box. (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login- run).
    We recommend that you add a bank account so you will be able to spend
    the funds in your account and easily transfer funds between your
    PayPal account and your bank account.

    If you would like to withdraw funds from your PayPal account, the
    easiest and fastest way to withdraw funds is to add a bank account.
    To add a bank account, login to your PayPal account and follow the
    steps in the Activate Account box
    (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_logi n- run). You may also
    request a check by logging in to your PayPal account and clicking on
    the Withdraw tab.

    Thank you for using PayPal!

    The PayPal Team

    (LINE OF DASHES DELETED TO GET AROUND ROB MALDA'S ADMISSION THAT MODERATION DOESN'T WORK)

    This PayPal notification was sent to rgristroph@yahoo.com because
    your account is likely to be impacted by a recent change to our
    service. PayPal reserves the right to contact members regarding
    important product or policy announcements. To modify your
    notification preferences, click here to login to your account.
    Replies to this email will not be processed.

    Copyright@ 2001 PayPal Inc. All rights reserved. Designated
    trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.

    --
    Happy Happy Joy Joy, I love the lameness filter. Can I post now ? nope. Maybe I should past some random crap in here to bring the average up. Or put every character on a separate line like the page-lengthening guy. Please rob, goddamn I just wanna post this. Maybe that is enough. No it is not. Perhaps I should just give up on including the mail header in the post, but I think it gives more authenticity. Probably no one will question the accuracy of my post, except of course the lameness filter. Does not the bugtracker on sourceforge have all kinds of bugs related to the lameness filter ? Perhaps everytime we hit it, we should just mail the post to the slashdot editors and ask them to record it as a bug. Ok, delete some shit and add more text down here. Ratio ok yet ? No it is not. Somebody help me, I'm lame ! Jesus H. Christ in a horse manger, what does it take ?

    1. Re:Paypal is criminal by cperciva · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're blaming the wrong people here, unfortunately. I very much doubt that Paypal wanted to do this -- they really don't gain much as far as stopping fraud goes.

      The people you should be complaining about are the various US law enforcement agencies. They've said many times that they want to shut down terrorist financing, and that they want to be able to find out how and when every dollar changes hands around the world in order to do so.

      Unverified accounts on Paypal, where people move funds in and out without ever providing any more identification than an IP address, are exactly the sort of "money laundering" target the FBI are going to shut down.

      In any case, I fail to understand why you don't want to link a bank account. If you change banks later, it won't matter... as long as you've linked a bank account once (and thereby proved your identity) they'll be happy.

      --
      Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
    2. Re:Paypal is criminal by RGRistroph · · Score: 2

      If I wanted to fund a terrorist or other nefarious organization, I would not use Paypal, even under the old rules. I would simply incorporate a company which did "cunsulting" and hired other "consultants." Or better yet, was involved in a little cigarette import/export on the side. If even a small portion of Osama bin Laden's billions or millions were in Paypal accounts, those guys would probably be making money.

      While I would agree that certain authorities are probably excessively paranoid about any type of anonymous money transfer, I don't think that paypal's actions are explained by that. You can send up to $300 cash by Western Union without providing ID, why wouldn't they go after that first, before they went after all the pathetic little paypal accounts ? Look at postal money orders. The source of funds there is more anonymous than paypal, because it's cash at a post office, where as any paypal money had to enter the system via a known individual.

      Why didn't paypal just freeze all non-verified accounts ? Instead, they choose to allow people to put money into them, but not take money out. The FBI, Secret Service, IRS, and others are pretty humourless by the book types; I find it difficult to see them corrupting their anti-terrorism actions by allowing a private company to collect interest off of suspect moneys. If they thought that paypal was a haven for illicit funds, they would simply freeze all non-verified funds in such a way that they could not be claimed as assets by the bank ( x.com in this case ) and weren't earning interest for anyone, except maybe Uncle Sam.

      Paypal's action doesn't bear the bureaucratic marks of the three-letter agencies. It does look like an attempt to reserve sums to be used to fund paypal, by making it bureaucratically difficult to withdraw the funds. This behaviour has been documented before, look at paypalsucks.com or other sites. It is no morally different than advertising a mail-in rebate in big print, and then when the customer gets ready to send it it require various documentation they are not likely to have.

      The reason why I didn't want to link any bank account is the same reason why I don't allow my employer to direct deposit, why I don't allow the cable or utilities to directly withdraw from my money: to set up such arrangements you have to enter into a non-symmetric agreement, namely, that if they make a mistake and pay you too much or take too little, they get to automatically correct it by withdrawing more from your account, but if the mistake is in their favor not yours, you don't get to automatically do anything, you have to complain and write letters and etc.

      Take a close look at your next few phone and cable bills. These guys are not competent enough to have access to my bank account, it is as simple as that. I signed up for AT&T at 22 dollars a month, and my latest bill shows basic service at 34 dollars, with all kinds of features mysteriously appearing. I'll have to do my twice yearly call to them sometime soon, two hours on hold and then cancel everything they've added and complain, with no hope of getting any money back for the overcharges I've already paid.

      If you think about it, all money is is tokens to keep track of debts in a big accounting system. That's why it is so easy for banks to handle everything electronicly between them. In it's initial incarnation, paypal offered the promise off allowing free electronic payments (or accounting of debts) between individuals, the classic internet democritization of a previously elite ability. Since they turned into a bunch of grasping corporate theives, it's hard to see what they have to offer any more.

      Just remember this . . . it's cheaper to pay someone with a postal money order (75 cents) and a stamp (34 cents) than it is to send money via paypal ( 2.9 percent plus 35 cents). Given that all paypal has to do is a database transaction in their server, why is it cheaper for the USPS to actually deliver a piece of paper ? Come on, a fucking moderation of a comment is database transaction on slashdot, and they make money doing it for free; why does paypal have to charge several dollars per transaction, especially given that they are already earning interest off of my money ?

  4. Re:Lameness filter by cperciva · · Score: 2

    PS. Probably the best way of dealing with email messages like this would be to put it up on a website and post the URL...

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
  5. Finally! by RLiegh · · Score: 1

    I can't get my landlord (or the parent company he works for) to accept online payments. I can get my phone company to accept them, but I'm paid up until June.
    I'm getting charged $8 a month for a service (online banking) I don't use (when I could be spending on beer, which I do use)...hopefully PayPal accepts payments from my bank so I can finally justify the expense. :):)

    Oh.Yeah. ...and help out a worthwhile organization who's been providing me with free software for 3 years, yada yada yada.... ;);)

  6. Oh No! by mcbridematt · · Score: 1

    Their going to get More Legal Fees if they use PayPal. Check out http://www.paypalwarning.com

  7. Paypal sucks. by tcc · · Score: 2

    http://www.paypalwarning.com

    While I didn't have any problems with them because I never risked receiving money, they did screw me up on the "5$ referal bonus" things even after the referee mailed the support and confirmed my claims and all.. so I thought, if they don't respect their word, what tells me that they will refund me? what stops them from freezing my account or overcharging me?

    I did a few searches and I've found the above site that confirmed what I was suspecting.

    --
    --- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
  8. Re:*BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This guy really, really has nothing better to do with his life. Very very sad indeed.

  9. Don't forget your tinfoil hat. by duffbeer703 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem here isn't Paypal, banks, credit card companies, or the government.

    It's you.

    If you read your credit card statement carefully, you would have noticed that the "Credit Protection Service" is an option that you have to sign or initial for. You could have easily not signed and/or initialed and you would not have had to pay the fee.

    It also sounds like you don't have a bank account so that you can avoid being "ripped off" by the banking industry. I suppose it is easier and cheaper to pay someone a fee to cash your paycheck and buy money orders to pay your bills.

    I can understand your complaints about various fees levied by paypal against it's users. Complaining about PayPal's desire to know who it is doing business with, on the other hand, is sheer lunacy.

    How can you operate a money-transfer operation without knowing whom you are transferring money to? The sheer paranoia you display by refusing such a sensical and basic request is pretty frightening. Feel free to contact me via email where I can refer you to a mental health provider.

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  10. Re:*BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's not one guy fucktard.

    Plenty of people post the BSD troll.

    Morons like you who continue to respond make it as funny as all hell.

  11. Get real. by mindstrm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So what if he doesn't have a bank account? Is it mandatory? No. it's not.

    As for 'fees'... let me tell you a few things.
    1) You can walk into the branch of the bank that the cheque is written against, and provide ID, and take ALL your money, they cannot charge you fees. You do not need an account. By law, they are bound to honor the cheque (which is simply an insturment instructing the bank to pay you the money)

    2) He has a legit complaint against paypal. They should NOT need to know who they are doing business with; that is not a requirement of business.

    3) How can you operate a money trasnfer operation? Through security. How do you think anonymous swiss numbered accounts work? Same thing here. The account belongs to whoever has that paypal ID and password... get it?

    4) It's not a basic request. Paypal has screwed up before; Why should paypal require either his credit card number or my bank account number if I never plan to use either with them? WHat he's saying is that they do not NEED either of these things to provide him with the service he wants. He doesn't use them. Furthermore, if paypal merely wants to verify who he is, there are other ways to do this other than requesting his bank account/credit card.

    You, sir, are the perfect consumer.

    1. Re:Get real. by duffbeer703 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is no reason why someone with a real job should have a bank account. If you find it too onerous to have one becuase of fees, then you probaly have a screw or two loose.

      Organizations that handle monetary transfers do have a need to establish the basic identity of their clients. They face stiff fines when their clients turn out to be drug dealers, money launderers and other criminal types.

      --
      Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  12. Trolls are dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    In the olden days, trolls lived under bridges in Scandinavia, and extracted monstrous payments from would-be passers by.

    Nowadays, Microsoft has taken on the job of ripping people off, even in the coldest parts of Scandinavia, and they can do it without using bridges (or routers - but if you have one, Cisco will rip you off too).

    This leaves trolls with nothing to do but post childish comments about operating systems that they have never used, and most people have never heard of.

    Netcraft and IDC never even mention trolls, and nor do Microsoft. Its not true that Bill Gates is a secret troll. George W Bush can't even spell "troll".

    Apple Computer ceased employing trolls when the Lisa failed to sell, and that was over 15 years ago. Even BSDZine doesn't mention trolls in 97% of issues. The bridge over Walnut Creek hasn't had a troll living under it since 1776. Clearly there is no future for trolls, even if they are alive, which is doubtful.

    The best advise to any remaining trolls is "get a life". (Though a part in "Lord of the Rings" might be more profitable.)

  13. Why did *BSD fail? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    It is sad that *BSD fallen to begging for quarters in order to pay its bills. *BSD has become the homeless operating system, panhandling for change.

    So why now? Why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personalities?

    The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shround over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

  14. BSD should'nt be dying by mcbridematt · · Score: 1

    What the hell. FreeBSD is a very reliable platform, free, open source and very stable. FreeBSD is one of the main unices. Linux depends on FreeBSD a lot. Many FreeBSD apps are ported to Linux Linux apps are ported to FreeBSD (such as KDE or Gnome). I am even thinking of Using FreeBSD on one of My Machines.