SourceForge Donation System for Projects

So...... by flewp · 2003-12-12 21:59 · Score: 5, Funny

Will people pay for my open source sit on my ass project?

--
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?

Re:So...... by MoonFog · 2003-12-12 22:04 · Score: 0, Troll

From the article:
Today we are launching a system that allows users to not only donate to SF.NET, but also to their favorite projects.
If they feel your "sit on my ass project" is worth their money, sure.

Transaction fee by nacturation · 2003-12-12 22:00 · Score: 4, Informative

There's a 5% transaction fee, but that doesn't sound totally unreasonable.

This is even less than what 2checkout charges. Not a bad deal at all and SourceForge gets a bit left over after processing fees.

--
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Re:Transaction fee by gnu-generation-one · 2003-12-13 01:34 · Score: 2, Informative

"There's a 5% transaction fee, but that doesn't sound totally unreasonable... not bad at all"

Minimum transaction fee: $1. So the percentage varies from 5% to 20% depending on how much you spend.
Re:Transaction fee by nahdude812 · 2003-12-13 08:53 · Score: 4, Informative

I was excited to see only a 5% fee also. However, this is a little inaccurate. Since SourceForge takes the donations over PayPal, PayPal also sticks in its surcharges. So it's 5% less good (for the developer) than just using PayPal to accept donations. I'm not sure what the benefit is here. My project already accepts donations through PayPal, and I'd been watching out for a new means as not everyone who has wanted to donate could or wanted to use PayPal.

--
Slay a dragon... over lunch!

Sounds like... by ghettoboy22 · 2003-12-12 22:03 · Score: 2, Troll

Good idea, but how many people will actually donate? Sounds more like shareware and not the "traditional" open-source we've come to love and appreciate. I can think of a few projects I wouldn't mind donating to, but that's the key word. A couple.

Re:Sounds like... by MoonFog · 2003-12-12 22:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Don't you think mostly the largest and most popular projects get the donations ? And when they do, perhaps some of the projects can use the money to expand further.
I don't agree on the shareware thing, it's not like you have to pay.

I see more and more OSS projects accepting donations, and my guess is that there will be more to come. The good thing is that you can support the ones YOU feel like need supporting! So the couple of projects you think of, fine, support them, I'm sure they could use your money.
Re:Sounds like... by AsparagusChallenge · 2003-12-12 22:12 · Score: 1, Insightful

Sounds more like shareware

I don't think I would mind having non-encumbered, free redistribution, free modification, full source available shareware. If it can still be called that way :)

A couple.

For all the rest life will simply go on. These couple will have better opportunities. No loss.
Re:Sounds like... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-12 22:58 · Score: 3, Informative

Open is not a synonym for free, a program can be open source even if you can't use it at all without paying for a license!!!
Re:Sounds like... by bfree · 2003-12-12 23:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

The beauty of this system (as well as it's potential downfall) is the possibility of the projects to redirect the money. Where projects use other projects as the basis of their work (say a cdrecord front-end), the front-end is more likely to attract end-user cash then the back-end but should recognise the appropriatness of redistributing some of their donations to the back-end. If this works well you would see the cash going into all the systems valued by the end user. If it goes badly you will see warefare within projects as well as between projects who share code. So who thinks the people within each project in charge of the money distribution will be able to do the right thing? I don't though I really wish they could!

I would rather see donations going to a collection of groups like SPI, FSF, UserLinux, Mandrake, Lindows who can act as a front end to collect money and channel it out to places where they think it's going to get the best value for the donators (including giving it to themselves to keep working). This of course would not prevent warfare, but at least it would provide a handful of central decision making bodies to examine and evaluate so the community could bring to potential donators attention the history of how the bodies have acted and who therfore are the best choices depending on what you aim to promote. It is for this reason I see Mandrake and even Lindows as potential donation targets (and you could argue for most commercial linux offerings) as they both develop internally and by bringing in outside interests, Lindows going for the big publicity grabbing things (FrontPage replacement, XBoxLinux and of course the eponymous distro), Mandrake just looking to put together a good set of distros. Of course there is no means to make a donation to a US company (not sure around the world how this works) as Michael Moore delighted in by bringing around fat cheques to "give" to companies.

--
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Re:Sounds like... by ColdGrits · 2003-12-13 01:02 · Score: 1

"Open is not a synonym for free, a program can be open source even if you can't use it at all without paying for a license!!!"

OK, I'll bite.

How is that going to work?
You have the full source, you edit out the license checking code, and you then run the program for free.

Ergo, open source software is indeed free, in both meanings of the word.

--
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Re:Sounds like... by div_2n · 2003-12-13 01:58 · Score: 1

It seems to me that this system is a lot like Linux in that it gives power to the people. If you really want to donate to the whack-a-mole project or whatever--you can.

Having to donate to a central group means that they will use the money in a way that they see fit and will likely not be totally compatible with the wishes of the donor. I disagree completely that that would be a better system.
Re:Sounds like... by bfree · 2003-12-13 02:13 · Score: 1

If the donor donates to a central group then whatever the central group does with it is the wishes of the user. I agree completely that this is a far nicer system than central groups, it's just I am pessimistic about this and believe that such random injections of money into the development communinty will likely lead to some big falling out and hence don't believe it is a better system. It is far easier for a user to have their money "missappropriated" if they are making small individual donations (think of the spamming potential) then if they are making a donation to someone who is big enough to likely have a number of people watching them as well as possible and publically kicking them. Of course there is always going to be room for both approaches, I just hope the money doesn't breed "corruption".

--
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Re:Sounds like... by BenjyD · 2003-12-13 02:13 · Score: 1

But I could get pretty much any software for free. Just because I can download Windows for free doesn't mean it's legal to do so, and it certainly doesn't make it free(beer) software.

Open Source!=Free(beer) software!=Free(speech) Software
Re:Sounds like... by Scarblac · 2003-12-13 03:10 · Score: 1

How is that going to work? You have the full source,

No you don't. You only have the full source (and the binaries etc) after you pay. Imagine a Linux distro that's only available in a box.

Of course, this goes wrong the moment one of the people who bought the package decides to put it on Kazaa, something he's allowed to do.

--
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Re:Sounds like... by ColdGrits · 2003-12-13 05:06 · Score: 1

Yeah, but the flaw in your argument is that your Windows scenario is illegal, whereas redustributing a modified copy of the open source program which formerly required a license is perfectly legal.

Open source == free (beer) software == free (speech) software.

--
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Re:Sounds like... by ColdGrits · 2003-12-13 05:09 · Score: 1

"You only have the full source (and the binaries etc) after you pay:"

And as soon as I have, there is nothing in law to stop me making said modification and redistributing the source for free to everyone.

Heck, it is positivly encouraged (nay, mandated) than any mods are returned to the community, after all...

--
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Re:Sounds like... by BenjyD · 2003-12-13 05:16 · Score: 1

Damn, my head hurts too much today to post correctly. I meant to say having the source for a program doesn't necessarily mean you have the right to redistribute it. But then I typed Open Source with caps, so...oh forget it, I'm going back to bed.
Re:Sounds like... by cranos · 2003-12-14 13:34 · Score: 1

"We're all someone's daughter, we're all someone's son; How long must we look at each other down the barrel of a gun?"

I never thought I would see the day that John Farnham would make it to /.

At least you didn't start quoting "Sadie the Cleaning Lady".

Could get messy by mcpkaaos · 2003-12-12 22:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'd hate to see what would happen the moment divvying the donations up among project members goes awry. How do you decide whose contribution deserves what portion? I'm not sure money is the right thing to toss into the OSS mix.

--
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.

Re:Could get messy by MoonFog · 2003-12-12 22:12 · Score: 1, Offtopic

How do you decide whose contribution deserves what portion?
From the article: Today we are launching a system that allows users to not only donate to SF.NET, but also to their favorite projects.

It's the user/donator himself who chooses which project get the money, not SF or any other authority.
Re:Could get messy by mcpkaaos · 2003-12-12 22:20 · Score: 4, Informative

Not which projet, which members of each project.

--
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Re:Could get messy by MoonFog · 2003-12-12 22:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Don't you think that's up to the project manager to decide ?

I see your point, and it would mean that as a contributor to a project you trust the project manager with handling the money. Remember, each project must sign up for this opportunity themselves, they are not automatically a part of it.
Re:Could get messy by CoderByBirth · 2003-12-12 22:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

Really?
I for one consider this an excellent initiative from SourceForge.
Project developers get a standardized solution for monetary support
and SourceForge gets money to support their servers and are able to provide better service.

Besides, in projects where the division of money
would prove difficult the decision would be easy to just not join the program.
Also, we're talking pennies here. Open source developers and their users are cheap SOBs :)
Re:Could get messy by screenrc · 2003-12-12 22:53 · Score: 1

That is correct. The money will probably be
too little to worth starting a fight.
Re:Could get messy by cyb97 · 2003-12-12 23:28 · Score: 1

Further it's not like this makes OSS a dayjob.
If you contribe to OSS it shouldn't be because of financial gains but rather because you think you can add something to the project.
I guess not many projects will get so much money that it would be something to really argue over. As I see this wouldn't be the way big corporations would sponsor projects like they do today. I think they'll still contant the projects directly and either put somebody on their payroll to work on the project or donate equipment.

This service will probably be where joe-schmoe puts his dollars to work, and donating a $5'er here and a $5 there...
Re:Could get messy by cyb97 · 2003-12-12 23:32 · Score: 1

I can't really see which benefits this gives over using PayPal and the infamous "Donate" button.
But that being said, all incentives that generate more OSS either through money or other means, is a good incentive.
Re:Could get messy by mm0mm · 2003-12-13 00:20 · Score: 1

"I'd hate to see what would happen the moment divvying the donations up among project members goes awry."

If contributors of a project fight over distribution of money, then that project is already a history. I don't expect any projects run by people with no coordination with each other or common goals to be successful.

For fairness to all members involved, however, the information regarding to given donation has to be available to all members. Otherwise only a few close to the source *can* take advantage. If contributors' only motivation becomes donation money, this mentality may distort the look of open source in general. Open Source exists to produce better programs, alternative to commonly used low quality software that was written only to make money.

Donation is rewards to their work, not salary. That said, IMO SourceForge's program will help projects to survive and offer what the contributors deserve.
Re:Could get messy by xaraya · 2003-12-13 00:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

It hasn't been a problem for us at Xaraya with the donations, as we reinvest the donations that we receive back into marketing, pr, etc. We report back the balance of the donations about once a month to the other committers on the project and discuss and have specific goals for the money earmarked. If you expect to get rich from the donations coming in from a project, remember that there are other much more worthy charities that folks will donat to. Donations are generally $20 to $50 scale and are just nice ways of saying thanks, when someone doesn't have the knowledge to reinvest in the project via code / bug reports / docs.
Re:Could get messy by zerocool^ · 2003-12-13 01:59 · Score: 1

Not which projet, which members of each project.

I will not be donating any of my money to occult activities. All this talk of witches and daemons... you should be ashamed!

--
sig?
Re:Could get messy by eean · 2003-12-13 07:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

I agree. I never have really understood where SF gets any money, which is worrying consider what a crucial role they play in the open source world. They could be a method of bringing in some good income.
Re:Could get messy by blackwizard · 2003-12-13 08:24 · Score: 1

The benefit is that sourceforge gets the money and not PayPal. Besides, some people dislike paypal and would never purchase anything through them anyway. Also, you potentially have more visibility for a "donate" feature on the sourceforge pages themselves, rather than just on the custom page for your project.
Re:Could get messy by fwoggey · 2003-12-13 08:55 · Score: 1

Except that SourceForge sends the money to a PayPal account. So you end up paying them anyway.
Re:Could get messy by cyb97 · 2003-12-13 10:23 · Score: 1

and you "lose" the 5% to paypal or sourceforge?
Re:Could get messy by JoeBorn · 2003-12-13 17:39 · Score: 1

Sure, it could get messy, but money is not the only source of messiness. Money is really a useful if not necessary component of many many open source projects. Many of the big projects require full time effort, Ogg is a good example, it's not easy to develop and maintain a set of Codecs in one's spare time. The use of donations and contract work, has in no way, that I can see, tained the purity of their mission. They still provide an open and royalty and patent free set of codecs. If they accept donations and contract work it only advances the standard as far as I can tell. I know it may repulse the purists, but I think actually allowing more flexibility in licensing models and corporate involvement would advance the open source movement much more than it would hurt it. There are many open source developers that would quit their day jobs if they could afford to. A little money would not send them to the dark side.

--
If you're going through hell, keep going -Winston Churchill

how about just using paypal? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-12 22:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

What do i need sf for? just givem my paypal email and end of story.

5% Transaction Fee by Sensitive+Claude · 2003-12-12 22:12 · Score: 1, Interesting

I find it an interesting coincidence that a lot of small businesses pay about 5% when you make purchases with a credit card.

I'm not saying it is fair or unfair or even insensitive, but interesting.

Heck, a lot of charities will skim 60% off the top of donations just for canvasing etc. In this respect 5% sound quite reasonable.

--
Promote Sensitivity on Slashdot, make me your friend.

PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by Motherfucking+Shit · 2003-12-12 22:14 · Score: 5, Informative

Assuming it's really only a 5% transaction fee (the linked site states: "A few other tidbits of information about this new donation system: SF.NET is taking a 5% piece of the transaction fee," which seems to suggest that the transaction fee is larger than 5%), here is the breakdown between PayPal and SourceForge.

PayPal charges max 2.9%, plus $0.30.

If you want to donate $1.00 to your favorite Free Software project, the fee is 5 cents through SourceForge and 33 cents through PayPal.

If you want to donate $5.00, the fee is 25 cents through SourceForge and 54 cents through PayPal.

If you want to donate $10.00, the fee is 50 cents through SourceForge and 59 cents through PayPal.

If you want to donate $15, the fee is 75 cents through SourceForge and 74 cents through PayPal.

If you want to donate $20.00, the fee is $1 through SourceForge and 88 cents through PayPal.

PayPal is therefore a better solution for donations >= $15.

--
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.

Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by sammy.lost-angel.com · 2003-12-12 22:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

However, if you give money through SourceForge the money is going back into them instead of a third party. This way they can continue to host these open source projects.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by rizawbone · 2003-12-12 22:20 · Score: 4, Informative

(the linked site states: "A few other tidbits of information about this new donation system: SF.NET is taking a 5% piece of the transaction fee," which seems to suggest that the transaction fee is larger than 5%)
You can take 5% of anything. It doesn't suggest a larger percentage at all.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-12 22:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

PayPal is therefore a better solution for donations >= $15.

But you forget one thing.
The fee will be used to provide much needed bandwidth and hosting space.

Paypal does not contribute back.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by cgranade · 2003-12-12 22:52 · Score: 1

PayPal is therefore a better solution for donations >= $15.
Not nessesarily... SF gets some of the profit, and they're a good business, whom I don't mind supporting. It's like when I go buy food from a local store at 25%-50% higher costs so that I know I'm supporting a good business.

--
#define DRM chmod 000
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by tomstdenis · 2003-12-13 00:13 · Score: 1

You could just use math to solve this

1.05x = 1.03x + 0.3

subtract you get

0.02x = 0.3

divide by .02

x = 15.00 :-)

--
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by Knights+who+say+'INT · 2003-12-13 00:36 · Score: 1

Paypal does not contribute back.

See, thats what really bothers me. "Giving back to the community" is subjective. A donation system based on the warm-fuzzy-community feeling will generate quite objective cash-cow revenue.

You could always buy Microsoft products because Bill G donates huge loads of money to African and South American stuck-in-poverty countries.

In the end, the open source system has many of the flaws in the larger political system. People are not only giving money, but contributing with valuable and knowledgeable time in programming, and get back fuzzy "support for the community".

I definitely see some people getting rich here, and some people not.

Much like companies behind commercial P2P software are getting rich off mr. underpaid indie artist. Hell.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by hacker · 2003-12-13 01:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

"The fee will be used to provide much needed bandwidth and hosting space."
Excuse me, aren't they already backed by VA and IBM commercially as well as funded by dozens of non-Free Software banner ads littering the site's pages as it is?
If this donation system actually begins to improve the service quality of SourceForge, while removing ALL banner ads, I see it as a good thing, except, that's not going to be the case here.
Let's also not forget about SourceForge drifting away from the community, being non-Free itself (with the code being unavailable), crippling common development and project management tools, and hijacking projects for personal gain.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by NeoSkandranon · 2003-12-13 02:18 · Score: 1

You misread the original post. He is musing that the actual transaction fee is something bigger, and SF gets 5% of that.

The quoted text says quite clearly "F.NET is taking a 5% piece of the transaction fee"
In order for it to be a piece, the whole fee must be bigger. Somewhat unclear to be sure, but there it is.

--
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 02:24 · Score: 5, Informative

Pay-Pal; an ex-managers story/observations: (copied from paypalsucks forums)

I was a "middle management type" with Pay-Pal until leaving recently- partally due to my disgust over their internal security policies which have led to the mountain of complaints seen on this and other similar boards. There aren't many PP whistleblowers; during your "exit interview" a soon-to-be-former manager is warned, intimidated and threatened against doing the very thing I'm doing right now. But since I left to start my own business, there's not a thing they can do to me.

Pay-Pal DID start as an honest, legitimate company with an innovative service concept. However, in my opinion, this concept can never actually WORK in the real world because there are legions of scammers all over the globe with reams of stolen credit card info and identifications just WAITING to swoop down on any new "payment service" like this that comes along. Credit-card transactions where the "card is not present" and thus personally examined by a clerk account for the overwhelming majority of fraud transactions. Comparitavely, there's very LITTLE credit card fraud at Wal-Mart, because the cashier actually sees both you and the card- and can ask for supporting identification at the point of sale. Unfortunatly, the high-risk, "card not present" transactions are the ONLY kind of transaction a company like PP can do, and boy- did the con artists find them in a hurry! The basic con was (and is) to use stolen identification information to open new PP accounts, funnel money into them with stolen credit card numbers, then transfer the money OUT of the account before PP gets the charge-back and can freeze it. Unfortunately, despite PP's claims of having a "tough anti-fraud program", these people are mostly impossible to catch, because when opening a new PP account, they DO have all the proper-appearing ID information (which was stolen or conned out of unsuspecting individuals, most of whom have never HEARD of Pay-Pal). When fraud is uncovered and the account is checked out, the perp is almost never caught, since it was almost always opened under a stolen identity, and he's long abandoned the mail-drop.

Yes, the application process COULD be made more stringent, but it is felt (probably correctly) that a brand-new customer would certainly balk at doing things like sending in notorized copies of their driver's licence and so forth. So an "alternate strategy" for offsetting the charge-back losses slowly evolved at PP. It's the perfect scheme really; since PP can't usually catch the scammers and dosen't want to loose customer base by making things more stringent to start with- they decided to simply re-coup their chargebacks from the pockets (and accounts) of good, solid people under the easily-defensible and impossible-to-criticize guize of "Fraud Prevention and Enforcement".. Simply put, if you're a seller and somebody pays you with a stolen credit card, you're targeted by PP security and might very well have your account siezed, "investigated", closed- and the money retained by PP. (Yes... they simply "add" it to their revenues and spend it like any other income. You basically gave them permission to do this under the "terms and conditions" you originally agreed to. No, I KNOW you didn't really read it, but I bet you will the next time!). Even if the person paying you has NOT used a stolen credit card, he could have been been flagged by PP as "somebody to keep an eye on" for any one of numerous reasons. If he does business with YOU, especially multiple times- you're frozen. OCCASIONALLY some lucky soul will complain about the siezure, and when the case is "investigated" by PP he is "cleared" and the money unfrozen. This good fortune has nothing to do with an actual "investigation" (there aren't any, really). Pay-Pal WILL unfreeze a small percentage of the accounts (as a future defense against a potential class action), so you MAY benefit from a simple luck of the draw. See, if it ever comes down to a massive class-action lawsuit, or even testimo
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by rlk · 2003-12-13 03:38 · Score: 1

I'd like to see Sourceforge work on real improvements rather than this. The bug tracking system, in particular, is an absolute travesty.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 06:41 · Score: 1, Interesting

This way they can continue to host these open source projects.

And only open source projects hosted on sourceforge, which is not good in my oppinion.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 23:22 · Score: 0

That's quite an eye opener; thanks for posting it.
Re:PayPal vs SourceForge - Breakdown by Finuvir · 2003-12-14 12:58 · Score: 1

Credit-card transactions where the "card is not present" and thus personally examined by a clerk account for the overwhelming majority of fraud transactions.

I don't know how it is in the rest of the world, but in Ireland the clerk has virtually no impact on the security of the transaction. I don't even sign my own name for most small transactions. I once wrote 'Krusty the Klown' surrounded by stars as my signature, just to see if the clerk was paying attention.

Also, your post is misleading. Maybe fraud is more common online, but the ways of obtaining card details are mostly offline. You're much more likely to have your card number stolen by a waiter in a restaurant than in a secure online transaction.

--
Why is anything anything?

Still, needs a paypal acount... by AsparagusChallenge · 2003-12-12 22:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

Even if I would like to redirect 100% to an organization, say, a couple months, still requires a valid paypal account's email address.

Not that I think I could bring donations, but just to experiment a while it would be useful to have a chance to re-donate without the mess of creating a paypal account (I code just for fun, I may change my mind later but right now that's what I would like to do: redirect a 100% just to see what happens).

OK, I'm an idiot by Motherfucking+Shit · 2003-12-12 22:25 · Score: 3, Informative

Upon further investigation, I managed to locate this:

http://sourceforge.net/tos/donations.php

It seems that SourceForge is actually using PayPal to handle the donations. They're just taking 5% of PayPal's fee, at least that's how I read it, so they must have worked a deal with PayPal.

Some better information in the story would have been nice. As it was, I clicked the link to OreillyNet, which had a link to SourceForge's forums, where I had to read an entire post and then locate a link to SourceForge's Terms of Use, which then directed me to yet another page describing the Donations Terms of Use.

A lot of digging to find info about this new feature. You'd think, being a VA entity, that Slashdot would have spiced the story up with a few more relevant links!

--
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.

Re:OK, I'm an idiot by zurab · 2003-12-12 22:48 · Score: 5, Informative

And yet you haven't found the correct part. The site documentation about donations explains how much will be deducted from each transaction:

PayPal deducts from each transaction a service fee in accordance with their policies; this fee may vary depending on currency conversion and other factors. SourceForge.net also assesses a separate service fee. As of 2003-12-01, the SourceForge.net fee is 5% of the donation, with a $1 minimum.

So, SF fee is separate from PayPal's fee and is charged on top of that; and has a minimum of $1. With bunch of small donations $5 to $10 from each contributor, the SF fee alone will be in the whopping 10%-20% range.
Re:OK, I'm an idiot by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 00:29 · Score: 0

You'd think, being a VA entity, that Slashdot would have spiced the story up with a few more relevant links!

You must be new here
Re:OK, I'm an idiot by gnu-generation-one · 2003-12-13 02:00 · Score: 2, Informative

"So, SF fee is separate from PayPal's fee and is charged on top of that; and has a minimum of $1. With bunch of small donations $5 to $10 from each contributor, the SF fee alone will be in the whopping 10%-20% range."

Perhaps we should point out that the cheapest way to receive donations is still to publish an address, work address, or P.O. box number. (If you think addresses should be private, have a look at your WHOIS listing sometime)

You can then mail cash as a donation, and it'll cost a few tens of cents for postage, and it works worldwide. You can buy money in the recipient's currency at your post office, or if you're in the same country, write a cheque.

Just don't tell the postman you're mailing cash.

If you need to transfer a large amount, you can publish a bank account number, and people can transfer money directly to that account. The cost of that would be about $10, but for large amounts of money, you really want to trust a bank, instead of someone [PayPal] which looks like a bank, acts like a bank, but has a history of cheating, a ridiculous ToS/privacy policy, and absolutely no regulatory oversight.
Re:OK, I'm an idiot by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 02:24 · Score: 0

This will be so awesome when PrayPal freeze sourceforge's account for a "possible violation" of unspecified nature, then proceed to drain their bank accounts.

support? by kautilya · 2003-12-12 22:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

Umm..I can see the next step. You can opt-in for some sort of subscription through with you can get "support" through email by code maintainers.

PayPal is not available everywhere by patro · 2003-12-12 22:57 · Score: 1

It seems that SourceForge is actually using PayPal to handle the donations.

PayPal is available in 38 countries which is not few, but far from being ubiquitos.

In order to this business model be really successful there should be an international micropayment system which could be used easily by anyone on Earth.

Paypal.com may be a bad idea by caca · 2003-12-12 23:37 · Score: 5, Interesting

I am not sure how many of you are aware of numerous reports of paypal.com being a somewhat questionable company. While I have not had them cause me any trouble personally, I thought it worth mentioning. It seems some people have had paypal.com hold up in excess of $5000.00, to either get it back in a year, or not at all. If you read the forums, you get a real good idea about how horrible they really are, with ex-employees telling some very interesting stories. If any of this is true, I would hate to see SourceForge caught in the middle of something that could hurt them or its users.

Re:Paypal.com may be a bad idea by bfree · 2003-12-13 01:04 · Score: 1

I am well aware of the reports on paypal, but I would seriously wonder wether they would risk messing with a sourceforge payment without extremely good reason. Why? Well, if you had a business based on Internet transactions would you provoke sourgeforge and it's followers?

--
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Re:Paypal.com may be a bad idea by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 01:41 · Score: 0

A bunch of powerless whiny dipshits? Sure, I'd fuck them over like all of the other powerless whiny dipshits.
Re:Paypal.com may be a bad idea by gnu-generation-one · 2003-12-13 02:10 · Score: 3, Informative

"If any of this is true, I would hate to see SourceForge caught in the middle of something that could hurt them or its users."

SourceForge mention that their system is a good way to donate money to organisations such as the EFF.

It's worth noting however, that both the Free Software Foundation, and the Electronic Frontiers Foundation accept credit cards directly, without any sort of intermediary.

As for Debian, there's the Software in the Public Interest site, which is setup to handle donations to Debian, or to other Free Software projects.

If you have more time than money, consider the Help Wanted pages at SourceForge and Savannah (currently unavailable)
Re:Paypal.com may be a bad idea by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 05:15 · Score: 0

Don't forget Mozilla!
Re:Paypal.com may be a bad idea by Michael+Spencer+Jr. · 2003-12-13 14:03 · Score: 1

Disclaimer: I work for a company which provides the kind of service I'm talking about here. I'm technical staff, not sales.

Below, when I say "merchant" I'm talking about someone who is selling a good or service, and is receiving payment from a customer using a payment processor.

I can see pros and cons to both ways of processing payments: the "proper credit card processing" way and the PayPal way. If you're a merchant, proper credit card processing locks you into a contract, requires you to pay an application fee and whatnot, does extensive credit checks, and retains the right to take your money away from you again if something goes wrong with a payment. PayPal apparently doesn't lock you into a contract, doesn't require an application fee, doesn't do credit checks, but according to the above reports seems to take your money away from you more liberally.

The major difference seems to be the lengthy merchant application process, and the method by which funds for fraudulent transactions are reclaimed from merchants.

In credit card land, funds are held or taken back from merchants by default when there's a dispute. I think the logic there is that generally merchants have "longer purses", and since only one side can get the "benefit of the doubt" by default, it should be the side more likely to survive going without that money. There's one of three reasons (that I know of) why this can happen to a merchant:

The first is a chargeback. Chargebacks are a known quantity -- there are well-defined reasons why a chargeback can occur, and a defined dispute/arbitration process associated with them. When this happens the disputed funds are taken from the credit card processor immediately, and so the credit card processor takes the funds from the merchant right away. The merchant gets a letter in the mail, or an automatic fax, and their bank account is immediately debited. The credit card processor doesn't get any extra money to sit on -- it payed the money back to the customer's bank before it received the money from the merchant.

The second is some kind of pledge, restriction, or other ...umm, thingey...which is decided upon in advance. The merchant and their new credit card processor negotiate a contract that states the processor will hold the merchant's funds for a few months. Usually the schedule for release of funds is well-defined. The thinking here is that if the merchant has really lousy credit, if the merchant were to suddenly start defrauding all of its customers, chargebacks would start rolling in. The bank wants to have the merchant's funds already on-hand so it doesn't have to chase them to Mexico and back trying to get their money back from the merchant. Again, this is negotiated in advance and isn't a surprise to either party.

The third is sometimes unexpected. When the merchant fills out their part of the processing contract, they specify an average ticket (the average dollar amount of any single item they process) and an average annual volume (the average total dollar amount per year they're anticipating charging). If a merchant signs on as a beauty salon and does $30-$50 transactions on average, but then the merchant's construction-contractor husband uses her credit card machine to charge a $4000 job to a client, red flags go up. In this case the funds for that single transaction are held here at the bank, and the merchant gets a phone call and they discuss how the merchant can get their money. (perhaps provide extra proof that this was a valid/authorized transaction, perhaps open a new merchant account for the contractor/husband and tell him to stop using his wife's account, etc.)

(OK, I guess there's a fourth: "hey merchant, we tried to send money to your depository account, but your bank tells us the deposit bounced. Account closed. Can you give us new bank

It would be interesting by chevelleSS · 2003-12-13 00:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

to see a project allow those who donate to vote on what the money went towards.

I would have to vote for Perl/Python modules for GNU cash.

Re:It would be interesting by hacker · 2003-12-13 01:05 · Score: 1

"It would be interesting to see a project allow those who donate to vote on what the money went towards."

Haven't you joined Affero lately?
Seriously, Affero is an interesting concept, whereby your helpful code, suggestions, usenet posts, emails, etc. can be rated by people within the community that benefit from that help, and donations given by those individuals gets contributed to the organizations of their choice. The developer/user themselves gets 0% of the donation, 100% of it goes to other organizations, such as the FSF, EFF, Software Libre, and so on.
If this has helped you in any way, please take the time to rate the value of this post: http://rate.affero.net/hacker/
Re:It would be interesting by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 01:44 · Score: 0

Why would I want money donated for my help to go to either the FSF or the EFF? Both organizations employ people who say things publicly that make them look like complete idiots.
Re:It would be interesting by gnu-generation-one · 2003-12-13 04:04 · Score: 3, Funny

"Why would I want money donated for my help to go to either the FSF or the EFF? Both organizations employ people who say things publicly that make them look like complete idiots."

You haven't given money to the US government have you?
Re:It would be interesting by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 04:23 · Score: 0

Check out SourceSupport.org. They allow donors to vote whether the project was completed to their satisfaction.
Re:It would be interesting by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 04:31 · Score: 0

"Both organizations employ people who say things publicly that make them look like complete idiots."

Name two.
Also, those are only 3 of the 70+ organizations listed on Affero. Have you even looked at all? A good portion of them aren't even technology or Free Software related.
Open mouth, insert foot.
Re:It would be interesting by gangien · 2003-12-13 14:10 · Score: 1

I'll go further, name anybody?

0wn3d. by Knights+who+say+'INT · 2003-12-13 00:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

While its nice that they always _mention_ there's a corporate slant in giving space to Sourceforge stories, it's still a bit disturbing that a whole community is serving the interests of the likes of VA - not to mention IBM, Novell, and whatever big company becomes Linux/GNU/Open Source vendors.

Nah, I don't really know if there's a solution. While the compromise seems to be working okay (at least in the server market), for how long will be people willing to work for free for IBM?

How much is hacker reputation really worth?

Re:0wn3d. by Queuetue · 2003-12-13 00:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't (and I don't think any OSS developers) "work free for IBM."

I give back to the Linux kernel, mozilla, apache and other projects not because I wish to get "kewl hacker cred" but because these are tools that affect my daily life, and I get paid by my clients for the time I spend improving them.

So does IBM. When you say things like "work free for IBM," you ignore the fact that in the exact same sense, IBM is also "working free for me".

We're all working to improve the technical commons, most of us are getting paid, and everyone gets more technology out of it.
Re:0wn3d. by Knights+who+say+'INT · 2003-12-13 00:53 · Score: 1

How much is IBM really giving you in this whole open source business?

See, the problem is that these "contributions to the community" are not quantifiable. Hypocrite Computers Inc. can write the coolest screen saver for X, and get the whole bare metal interface, not to mention dozens of end-user apps.

And in the end, call it Hypocrite Computer OS, powered by linux (or, what, bsd) technlogy.

Sheeeesh. Looks like some fruit-named company has done it already. I should get in this OSS business. Proper marketing and a good Gentoo-like solution (with transparent installation, of course).

And if I want to get some cred with the community, I can always write a screen saver.
Re:0wn3d. by Queuetue · 2003-12-13 01:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

How much is IBM really giving you in this whole open source business?
Exactly how much they are required to: An amount between zero and infinity, inclusive.

Why do you think that IBM, or Hypocrite computers, for that matter, benefitting from work I was paid to produce hurts me in any way? There is also the mechanism for them to return the favor, but certainly not the requirement. Eventually (or at least statistically), they will need to fix something to work their way - Porting JFS, for instance. When they do that, and they follow the rules as the GPL lays them out, they benefit me, and a million others like me.

When I do something like fix an overflow oops in tty code, or find some dangling pointer deep in the bowels of some driver that only 50 people besides me care about, I help this community. I spend 5 minutes, and hundreds of people's lives are improved, including many who work for IBM.

If you wish to view OSS development from the perspective of a greedy person, then there is nothing here for you - there is no way, by design, to use the GPL to leverage money from a large organization.

If you, like me, work on OSS to pay your own bills, provide an outlet to challenge yourself, improve the technology you live with, and enjoy helping others in a cooperative community, then there's lots here for you.
Re:0wn3d. by Knights+who+say+'INT · 2003-12-13 02:12 · Score: 1

I don't know if I really understand you. What you're saying is that being easily reproduced, software has zero marginal cost. Is that what you're saying?

I apologize if I'm misrepresenting your point, but even if the marginal cost in reproducing the bare metal software the kernel people wrote is very small (these days, basically the bandwidth or the storage medium), there's a huge fixed cost involved in the making of even simple software like a window manager or a text editor.

Just start with the education of a programmer. Programmers and financial speculators deal with a mix of high abstraction and real-world constraints that are nowhere to be found either in the academia or in the rest of the corporate world. It's just not simple.

If I'm a somewhat experienced user who can tweak Gentoo a bit and package it in easily installable form using shell scripting, why oh why would I bother hiring coders when starting my very own Hypocrite Computer Inc. to release my HypOS X?

People respond to incentives. And while I can understand a programmer enjoying programming, why would he even be hired?

It's not a matter of greed, but of long term factibility. This sounds like a modified version of the Tragedy of the Commons that hasn't (afaik) been subject to serious economic consideration. I should do some researching in the academic papers in economics to see if someone's already said something.

But in any case, it's. Not. That. Simple.
Re:0wn3d. by Queuetue · 2003-12-13 04:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

No, actually, there is no marginal cost to me. My point, which I think you ignored, was that it costs me nothing for someone else to benefit from my work. It only costs those who commission me to produce further work - those with the greatest need, the furthest vision, or a sense of philanthropy.

For those that simply take my work and use it for whatever purpose they choose, I don't know what it may cost them - It doesn't matter, from my perspective.

If you feel gentoo is "done" then of course you wouldn't need to hire people to work on it before you released it. I don't fully understand your point. If I find tasty mushrooms in my backyard, I can certainly sell them for a profit, even though I didn't create them ... as long as people don't acquire the skills to pick their own. If I want to add value, I may have to hire a cook, people to package, and supplies.

People do respond to incentives - how does this argue with anything I'm saying. My paycheck is my incentive - I get paid to write software, not to keep people from using it. If someday, all the software is "done" - ie, everything that will ever need to be written is written and running perfectly - then yes, I'll be out of a job.

Obviously. Like the buggy-whip manufacturers.

But the complaints that IBM should not be allowed to enjoy the same rights as a smaller company, or an individual wrt the use of software... Why not? If I feel exploited, I'll stop making free software. But as long as I give my IP liberty, I'm certainly not going to complain when it enjoys the freedom of use that that liberty provides it.

It's actually very simple, but can be made more complex if someone wants to misunderstand.
Re:0wn3d. by silverbax · 2003-12-13 05:54 · Score: 1

"My point, which I think you ignored, was that it costs me nothing for someone else to benefit from my work."

You might want to rethink the wording of this statement. From most businesses perspectives, it may cost you a bundle. Just a note, not arguing with your overall point here.

If I code up a great game engine, and someone else makes $20 million using my engine, and I gave it away free, then I'm out a substantial amount of money. It's not even a question whether I am out the money or not.
Re:0wn3d. by HiThere · 2003-12-13 10:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

What bothers me is PayPal. I've heard stories disturbing enough that I'm NOT going to sign up for a PayPal account. Not even for a good cause.

I don't know that the stories are true, but I see no way to prove that they AREN'T true. Not until there is federal level law that states that PayPal is subject to standard fiduciary responsibility laws.

(If you want, I'll grant that that isn't much proctection. But appearantly currently the only protection is backlash in the press...you know, the press that thinks that SCO is a good guy.)

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:0wn3d. by Queuetue · 2003-12-14 00:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

If I code up a great game engine, and someone else makes $20 million using my engine, and I gave it away free, then I'm out a substantial amount of money.

No. Again, it costs you nothing for someone else to benefit from your work.

It may have cost you something to build the work - I'm not arguing that point. But it cost you nothing to give it away.

But, if, for instance, you and 15 other game developers chipped in a fraction of your 20 million to build an even better free game engine (release the code, not the content), then you'd all be far ahead.

If 200 other companies started to use your engine, and none of them gave back, you're still ahead. If the entire industry standardized on that engine? You're still ahead, because you got a better product, for much less than your planned cost.

Did you collect money from those other companies? No, but you are better off just the same - why do you need to?

Greed is killing us.

mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 00:26 · Score: 0

Good call. Sourceforge projects are life-blood to open source. Let's feed them.

"non-profits that support Open Source" by twener · 2003-12-13 00:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

"Project admins can decide if they want to give a portion of their proceeds to non-profits that support Open Source, such as the Open Source Initiative, Python, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Gnome Foundation, etc."

Does anyone has a complete list? Does it include KDE e.V. too?

Re:"non-profits that support Open Source" by AsparagusChallenge · 2003-12-13 00:50 · Score: 3, Informative

From admin->donate, on the project page:

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Apache Foundation
Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Gnome Foundation
KDE.ORG
The Python Software Foundation
SourceForge.net

And one can set a percentage between 5% and 100%
Re:"non-profits that support Open Source" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 08:04 · Score: 0

They forgot:

The Communist Party, USA

About Time by mr_lithic · 2003-12-13 00:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

I have implemented a lot of Open Source software at work and I often feel that I would like to give something back to the people who have created it.

Often the open-source stuff is better supported, more stable and has better features than the commercial software that it replaced. Two examples of this are VNC and Liberum (both SourceForge hosted projects).

VNC works much better for us than other commercial software and Liberum has completely replaced all of other helpdesk software due to its easy web interface and no need for a client install. A support person can clear a call while sitting on the desk of the person whose box they have just fixed.

If we gave even a percentage of the money that we saved due to these two products, it would run in the thousands of pounds.

Re:About Time by subverse02 · 2003-12-13 01:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

Why do so many think this will 'sully the waters' of open source?
As far as I can see, many OSS developers have philosophical attractions to the concept of free and open software, but why should this stand in the way of them making a buck or two?
Yeah, sure, VA Systems and Paypal are commercial entities, but what's wrong with that? What are all the OSS developers' day jobs? (Or where do their parents work?) I mean, you gotta put food on the table. And hopefully a new dual G5 once you've got the food covered! :)

Still the best (Re:Paypal.com may be a bad idea) by Rick+Richardson · 2003-12-13 01:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

When I checked around a couple of years ago, Paypal had the lowest transaction fee of any of the places that mere mortals can use for processing credit cards.

I've accepted a hundred or so payments thru PayPal; not one person I've dealt with had a bad experience and told me about it. A couple of people emailed me and said they did not have PayPal accounts and weren't going to get them because they "heard that PayPal is evil incarnate...". So they mailed me a check.

If you ask me, these people are being silly. They just sent a person they do not know (me), who is in another state or country, their checking account number. Thats like having unprotected sex. Oops I forgot this is slashdot and some of you may be unfamiliar with what that is - think of it as taking on a battle cruiser with your shields down.

There is nothing wrong with being a little careful with online payment systems. For example, I've tied my PayPal account to a throwaway checking account and credit card, not my main account and card. So if something does go wrong I can still make the mortgage payment at the end of the month while I get the snafu cleared up (no snafus yet). And when I get deposits into my PayPal account I immediately withdraw them into the checking account. It costs nothing to request withdrawal of funds.

paypal fee 32 times higher than e-gold! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 02:23 · Score: 2, Informative

paypal fee is 30 cents + 2.9%??

for a dollar donation that sucks!!!

e-gold charges 1% capped at 50cents.
so a dollar donation is a penny fee.

32X more fees for 1 dollar donation when using
paypal instead of e-gold!

mozilla foundation accepts e-gold.

we can do a bit better than mailing cash. by e-gold · 2003-12-13 02:46 · Score: 1

Mailing cash worldwide can be a bad idea for the recipient (but a good idea for the recipient's post office, it seems). We've got another solution, but nobody likes to look at our (incredibly-low, IMO) spend & storage fees, because e-gold is grams, and they also must think about independent exchangers' fees once they've gotten though that.

e-gold fees http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/fees.htm

Anyway, if they get past all the admitted complexity of a new way to think about money, e-gold really-does work anywhere there's internet. I also really-do regularly offer Slashdot readers a free (small...) click of the stuff (just email me with an account number to try it). Surprisingly-few takers when I do this, though.
JMR

--
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-

Dude, you have no frickin' clue by whatthef*ck · 2003-12-13 03:44 · Score: 2

While its nice that they always _mention_ there's a corporate slant in giving space to Sourceforge stories, it's still a bit disturbing that a whole community is serving the interests of the likes of VA - not to mention IBM, Novell, and whatever big company becomes Linux/GNU/Open Source vendors.

Dude, you have no frickin' clue how much VA Software, via Sourceforge, has done for the open source community. Even if they are making a profit through donations and banner adds--and I fervently hope they are, so they can stick around--the service they provide, for free, to open source projects is amazing.

<plug>BTW, check out my project on Sourceforge.</plug>

This is already being done by richcoder · 2003-12-13 04:16 · Score: 1

SourceSupport.org has been doing something like this for a while now.

SourceSupport.org does this better by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 04:29 · Score: 3, Informative

I've been working on a project that is listed over at Source Support where they take it one step futher, The don't give the money to the developers until the project is completed.

Here is a clip from their FAQ...

1. What is SourceSupport.org?
SourceSupport.org provides a system to pay programmers, artists, content creators and just about anyone that can provide a solution to challenges submitted by users. For example, let's say that there is a large group of people out there that want 'Program X' ported over to 'Operating System Y'. First, someone submits the challenge on SourceSupport.org. Others who see the challenge and are willing to donate for the cause can submit any amount they want with the hope that the added funds will persuade someone to come along and take on the challenge. Hopefully the challenge will be met and it becomes a win-win situation for both the donors and the person/team that completed the challenge. The donors get 'Program X' running on 'Operating System Y' and those who completed the challenge get paid. Finally a good way for a Open Source programmer make some cash for their efforts.

Wishlists & Bounties by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 04:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

Now if SF could just add a system for people to put up wishlists (projects or apps they would like to have available) probably with some optional bounty ("I'll pay X for app A"), that would be something...

C U!

Mario Valente

The Opportunists' Antennae just went up by smagruder · 2003-12-13 04:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Well, I hope that Sourceforge can handle the big burst of new requests for projects to be setup. They're gonna be busy for a while separating the rare wheat from all that chaff that's gonna hit them.

--
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist

Serviceware by droleary · 2003-12-13 06:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

I don't think I would mind having non-encumbered, free redistribution, free modification, full source available shareware. If it can still be called that way :)

You should call it Serviceware, since you're essentially supporting the concept of software development as a service instead of a product. Some companies (plug, plug) already release software like that.

Open Source Myth #0: People will donate to your pr by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 08:08 · Score: 0

Open Source Myth #0: People will donate to your project.

Fact: You will live in poverty.

It will only get better by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-13 08:44 · Score: 0

Guys, I'm sure they'll improve it with time; especially the spreading-the-word-about-it part...
I had emailed Slashdot just a couple of days ago with my own version of this.

I'm glad they are doing it.

Re:Still the best (Re:Paypal.com may be a bad idea by gangien · 2003-12-13 14:06 · Score: 1

Oops I forgot this is slashdot and some of you may be unfamiliar with what that is - think of it as taking on a battle cruiser with your shields down.

Even though his post is somewhat offensive, I quite literally laughed out loud at this. Sorry, no mod poitns.

my donations by doublebackslash · 2003-12-15 10:17 · Score: 0

I donate to a webcomic i read and love, and, given the cash, I would donate to more things that I use and love. Giving me more ways to donate may lead to more donations.

I for one welcome our new donation overlords, seriously though 5% aint bad, but it shouldn't be on top of the paypal fees. =/
S'pose I just want to have my executable and the source code too.

--
md5sum /boot/vmlinuz
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e /boot/vmlinuz

Donations to the EFF are tax deductible! by egghat · 2003-12-16 04:09 · Score: 1

So you'll save your taxes.

Quote from the EFF link in parent post:

"EFF is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, so your donation is 100% tax-deductible in the United States."

So no money to Paypal (good) and no money to George B. (good too).

Spend the saved money from the taxes to Sourceforge ...

Bye egghat.

--
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel

this horse may be dead, but... by tommck · 2003-12-17 11:11 · Score: 1

Am I the only one that's irritated that SourceForge does not publish their code anymore, even though their site states that it's GPL'd? The only allow access to very old code. The "Open Source Development Network" won't even open one of their flagship products?? WTF?

--
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.

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