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Giftfile Project Primes Decentralized Gift Economy
belmo writes "Last week, the Giftfile Project unveiled developer documentation and reference software for the giftfile system. This system enables producers and supporters of computer files containing nonproprietary intellectual works to participate in a gift economy. Tax deductible lump donations, made to nonprofit intermediaries, can be allocated to these files in an automated and efficient manner, supporting transactions as little as .01 USD. Nonproprietary intellectual works include free software, music, and literature. To use the system, you don't have to go to some web site and register--it's decentralized, built on open standards, and does not depend on any for-profit entity. The project is currently targeting free software developers to test the system, help make it accessible to other computer users, and be its first participants."
How typical. When a news story concerning **AA, specifically how it is going to sue people who download songs from the internet (I would not be shocked if the songs were Bach Chorales), everyone gets ticked, and we have veritable screaming matches.
Then, when a theoretical solution to the problem of how [composers|programmers|authors] will get compensation, NO ONE CARES!
....two people set up projects with an absolutely useless piece of free IP (like a 52x52 jpg of pure white), and start "donating" equal amounts to each other just for the tax deduction?
It is nice to have a free alternative to paypal, which forces registration on the user, as well as takes a percentage of what the developer makes.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
Hey I use a ton of GPL software, I wouldnt PAY for it
Im serious no flamebait, , BUT I also write and contribute software under many free licenses, so THAT my gift back to the "Open Source Movement" if you want to call it that.
I have seen "Free" software that it is almost EXPECTED by the author that he get a "Donation" for it, kinda irks me and usually It gets dumped, If you want to charge for it FINE but dont try and hide it behind the guise of free software then BEG for green.
I wonder how much problme REGULAR donations to EVERYONE involved in now free software would , I dono taint ? them to where they change to only a paid programming model ?
After reading their vacuous website it seems that they themselves are collecting donations by means of snail-mail only. Which seems completely laughable on the face of it.
And even if they emerge from vapor-mode and do indeed set up this system, it seems geared torwards institutions rather than individuals as you'd have to use a "gift-pool" ie: a centralized body and set aside fundage into that BEFORE you can assign a portion of those funds to a recipient. And that's not to mention the restrictions placed on those who may contribute their work by requiring contributers to license with a handfull of licenses.
Personally, I think PayPal already covers the online donation territory in a far less political and more trustworthy fashion. Anyone can set up a donation link for any reason whatsoever and collect fundage from the willing. No restrictions on what license is used, what type of media it is or anything else for that matter. And furthermore, you don't have to lock up funds in your paypal account to be able to donate, paypal will transfer from your bank account/credit card automagically.
I think the developers would be wise to reconsider their very niche-centric and restrictive objectives if they are to expect any real usage by both contributors and benefactors.
This system enables producers and supporters of computer files containing nonproprietary intellectual works to participate in a gift economy.
I'm sorry, but I don't get it. Why do I need to "participate" in this "system"? When I post my software on my website under an unenbcumbered license, every and all can come by and grab it. And if I want the unencumbered software of another that has been publicly posted, I can go and grab it. Neither side needs a special system to participate in.
ESR was using a metaphor when we was talking about gift economies in his books. The analogy is not accurate, because computer files are not integral "things". Potlatches were gift economies, because when you give your neighbor a salmon, you had one less for yourself. But when you give your neighbor a copy of your software, you still have it yourself.
Gift economies were based on plentiful resources, but not unlimited resources. (and they also had a strong element of "oneupmanship")
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I'm not sure that this is totally on topic, but it kinda has to do with gift cultures and micropayments
/ex
Micropayments-- the Exantrius way:
1) pay a certain amount to a "host" (this doesn't work quite right unless you have central hosting-- think sourceforge, or fanfics.net.) You can either do it so that it's what the user wants, or a flat rate, or whatever.
2) take a couple percent (5ish?) for server and bandwidth costs.
3) Every time you visit a "story"/informational page, you rate it (good, bad, indifferent), defaulting to indifferent if you don't choose any. every page you visit gets one "vote" for a bad, 10 votes for an indifferent, and 100 votes for a good.
4) At the end of the month, tally the number of votes from each user-- and find out each share price-- 1 vote == $.0032 or whatever. now place it in the voted's account. this would be per user-- if someone had 10000 votes and $10, their votes would be worth $.001. likewise, someone with 10 votes and $10 would have $1 shares.
5) Hold money in an account for each user. This works best in a closed system-- think a bbs or blog community or something-- probably more like fanfics.net or something with creative or real other value. when the voted makes a certain amount, they can cash out (so you don't have to send $.18 checks to people). say $20. Plus they can use their acct balance to pay their "subscription" fee.
2 ways for service to make money:
1) "skimming off the top"-- as long as it's kept low-- 5% is high, ideally it'd be in the sub 2% range.
2) collect interest on money-- invest it in short term investments or just put it in an interest bearing account.
Ideally though, the system would be set up as non-profit, with the hope that the people that set up the system are decent contributors, so they can make their own money... so make just enough money to pay expenses.
This would work best in a situation where everyone can be a contributor, and noone has "special" priveleges, except maybe a "top N stories" by votes. that means that the guy that runs the site would have to place his work in the system with everyone else.
This is just the most basic idea-- I've actually played around with this, but I'd need a large hunk of data in order to get numbers right... I think people would join a community for a small fee if they had the opportunity to get money back-- this also guarrantees that *ALL* the money goes back to users, and it gives an incentive to not only be an active member of the society, but a good contributing member.
Of course, I would make it all available without registering/paying, but with ads, and no contributing-- no reason to charge people who are just passing through...
Or possibly I'd let them contribute, and have a counter on their front page "If you registered, you would have made this much: $TEXAS"
Unfortunately I'm lazy, and frankly don't particularly care about doing data systems as much as I used to love them... If anyone can put this into effect, I'd love to hear about it...
bob[at]drunkmonkey]dot[org
Actually, this raises two excellent points which I can't see addressed in the stuff on their website, and are my biggest concerns with the system as I see it at the moment.
First, how to verify that the creator of a giftfile is the "owner" of a work? In other words, what's to stop me from taking the Linux source, making a giftfile for it using my private key, and then distributing the giftfile in an effort to get donations? I can't see anything which prevents behaviour like this.
Presumably the digital signature in the giftfile allows one to verify that a particular work matches a giftfile. That would stop me from putting my giftfile with someone else's work (to try and get people to donate to me instead of the real author), or putting my giftfile with some random crap which I claim is something useful.
Second, how to deal with works which are the result of several authors. In the case of the Linux kernel, there are hundreds of authors, but there can only be one private key to sign the giftfile (I think). Once there are funds donated towards this giftfile, who gets the money? Does it all go to Linus? Or must an organisation (eg. Apache) be setup for every project which has multiple contributors? Or do we have a similar situation to my first point above, where each author makes their own giftfile and then donors have to allocate money to every author? (Or perhaps some sort of grouping system so I can say "split my $10 donation equally among all the authors of linux-2.6.6.tar.bz2"? But I'm not sure how this would fit into their decentralised model...)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Yes, but Ken Brown is a fucktard.
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
I'm a developer with the giftfile project. We'll try to answer some of the questions/comments in another post or at the site, but let's take a step back. The giftfile project is a only humble start, we want to accomplish two things:
Our community needs these things to get to the next level. Everyone can see these problems. Somehow the community would like to believe that there is some magic solution or that it is hopeless. Instead we need to pull together and try the simple, obvious solution.
The Simple Economics of Content:
What are your answers?
I say that in the best possible world the reader is the patron and the support is voluntary. If you agree, then let's give it a shot. Please consider helping out.