Would Linus Torvalds Please Collect His Bitcoin Tips?

jfruh writes "Tip4Commit is a new service that allows anyone to link a tip for a developer to GitHub commits for open source projects. The tips are denominated in Bitcoin — and it appears that some developers aren't interested, with almost 40% of the total value tipped going uncollected. One dev who hasn't collected his $136 in tips is Linux inventor Linus Torvalds. It's not clear if the devs who aren't collecting their tips are opposed to the concept of tipping on open source projects or just don't want to deal with Bitcoin."

Comments

Value

[Joce640k]

$136 is an insult. I'd ignore it, too.

Re:Value

[wisnoskij]

And the ridiculous part is this is for Linus himself. Obvious a lot of the money goes uncollected, is sounds like most of the devs who get tips probably don't even have 5 bucks yet.

Re:Value

[beltsbear]

Yes, I am into Bitcoin and as long as I knew it was not going to be taken by someone else I might not rush to move it either. I might wait until it gets up to a couple hundred. This is really not a necessary Bitcoin story as we have so many others.

Re:Value

[Anonymous Coward]

All it took was $136 to get an advertisement on the front page of Slashdot and other geek news sites. Pretty good ad for a startup nobody has ever heard of.

Re:Value

[hodet]

He probably loses money wasting time collecting that dust.

Re:Value

[Anonymous Coward]

I would collect. Not collecting sends a message to anyone who is considering to tip you that you're not interested. To those who say, too much effort for the small amount: Installing a Bitcoin client is a trivial effort. It only gets complicated if you want to convert Bitcoins to another currency. Defer that until you feel it's worth the trouble.

Re:Value

[synapse7]

Maybe it is 136 bitcoins?

Re:Value

[gbjbaanb]

I guess they could implement a "not for me, pass it along to EFF or other charitable body" option on the recipient's end for those who don't care to bother with their tips.

Re:Value

[Burning1]

The front page of Slashdot just doesn't have the value it used to have.

Re:Value

[Desler]

Not collecting sends a message to anyone who is considering to tip you that you're not interested.

And if they really aren't interested, so what? Why should anyone be obligated to care about this stupid startup? If they can't get people interested then the whole thing should simply be allowed to fail.

Re:Value

[Desler]

Nope they haven't even amassed 4 bitcoins in donation.

Tip4Commit supported 337 GitHub projects, for which 9,076 tips have been earned (a tip is earned when a pull request for a commit on a supported project is accepted), totaling about 3.34 (worth about $2,650 at today's Bitcoin exchange rate of $793.20).

This is just an advertisement for some no-name trying to ride Linus' coattails for publicity.

Re:Value

[JoeMerchant]

The question to me is, was this a $2 tip left 3 years ago?

I sold a copy of software for 1 bitcoin back in mid-2012, worth $5 at the time. I sold said bitcoin in mid-2013 for $125, not a bad gain, but of course I would have done 1000% better to go stand at a cash register and say "you want fries with that" for the time spent writing the software in 2012, put all the income in bitcoin and sold in late-2013 instead.

Anybody got that crystal ball thing figured out yet?

Re: Value

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD. The app only has read access to your e-mail address.

Re:Value

[Anonymous Coward]

/. missed the Digg and then the Reddit train.

Doesn't surprise me, still has teh same shitty interface more or less from the late 90s. Won't even tell me if someone replied to one of my comments without me looking manually. Doesn't display correctly on tablet/phone, can't select post display setting on said devices.

This so called tech site sucks in a lot of ways.

Re:Value

[Joce640k]

Sure ... if it was just one person handing it to you in person then it would be rude to turn it down. It might be all they can afford.

But it isn't.

Re:Value

[wonkey_monkey]

$136 is an insult.

How on earth can it be an insult? Or, to put it another way, how could it be more insulting than $0, which is the amount people have to pay to get access to the work?

Re:Value

[phantomfive]

I would bet that it does still have the same value, for everyone except investors, who bought it expecting massive growth. The main difference between a decade ago is that other news sources have grown up and gotten more attention. But Slashdot still has the #1 place among programmers.

I estimate this because of #1, the number of comments on articles hasn't really gone down from a decade ago, and #2, Slashdot seems to be having no trouble finding ads to put on the page.

Of course, if the beta comes out, that will kill everything.

Re: Value

[Anonymous Coward]

Same shitty interface? Wait until you see the beta lol

Re:Value

[Ralph Wiggam]

Won't even tell me if someone replied to one of my comments without me looking manually.

I came back here after a decade hiatus because reddit got blocked at work. I was shocked that there had been virtually no improvements made in that time.

Re:Value

[Anonymous Coward]

If Linus collects these tips that mere act will be treated as an endorsement by bitcoin enthusiasts and will be (ab)used plentiful in their marketing. The bitcoin community is always looking for high profile endorsements and has been confused by the lack of support from the wider open-source community for some time now. They'd instantly jump at the opportunity to claim Torvalds as one of theirs, reality be damned. You would read on slashdot, reddit, in newspapers, ... how Linus Torvalds supports bitcoin, even if he instantly converts the btc into dollars and never loses a single word about cryptocurrencies.

Selling out for $136 is simply not worth it.

Re:Value

[unrtst]

I would collect. Not collecting sends a message to anyone who is considering to tip you that you're not interested.

Pan handlers have long since known this is NOT true. You leave some in the cup so it looks like other people felt comfortable enough to donate, but not so much that people think you have more than enough already. On the scale of Linus, leaving a couple hundred bucks in there seems about right.

Re:Value

[Bryan Ischo]

I read Slashdot literally every single day, multiple times per day usually, from 1998 until 2007. Then I got tired of the trend towards fluff articles posted solely to incite flame wars and all of the constant barrage of tinfoil hat articles. I came back and started reading semi-regularly a couple of weeks ago and I see that things haven't really changed at all. The big difference is that I've lowered my expectations and no longer expect every headline to be relevent and interesting like they used to be back in Slashdot's golden years (1998 - 2005-ish).

I wrote CmdTaco numerous times in the mid to late 2000s expressing my concern over the poor judgement of the at-the-time "new" editors (who appear to have become the only editors now) but he dismissed my concerns outright.

Re:Value

[Immerman]

Huh, seems a self-destructive way of looking at it. OSSoftware is a gift, freely given. If I appreciate the gift and would like to buy you a beer in thanks, that is also a gift. It doesn't imply that I think your work is worth one beer, just that I've got an extra beer and would rather give it to someone who has improved my life than drink it myself. It's like a garage band doing a gig at the local bar - they know they're not going to actually make a fair wage from their tips, but then that's not why they're doing it. They play for the pleasure of performing for an audience, the tips are just a bonus.

Purely hypothetical: A possibly more pressing factor in the case of Linus is that he's a celebrity, and as such accepting a tip through "Service X" would act as an implicit endorsement of that service and their tip allocation algorithms. If he does not actually approve of them, then $136 is a pretty low price to sell a celebrity endorsement for.

Re:Value

[morgauxo]

I agree, it does send a message that tips aren't apreciated.

Sure, running bitcoind is pretty easy. But.. you can just get an online wallet if you don't want to run it yourself.
As for waiting for it to grow, you don't have to turn it into fiat if you don't want to. Just make a wallet and move it there every now and then.

About the email address read access thing... is there any reason it has to be your regular address? Free email accounts are all over the net.

Re:Value

[morgauxo]

Digg and redit are too big of time syncs. If I go there I'm "stuck" for way to long, too much to see. Slashdot is more the right size for me.

Re:Value

[Dahan]

/. missed the Digg and then the Reddit train.

Doesn't surprise me, still has teh same shitty interface more or less from the late 90s. Won't even tell me if someone replied to one of my comments without me looking manually. Doesn't display correctly on tablet/phone, can't select post display setting on said devices.

This so called tech site sucks in a lot of ways.

Not sure how you expect to get notified of replies as AC... try logging in, and you'll have the option of various forms of notifications when someone replies to your comments. And a phone/tablet site was launched a few months ago: http://m.slashdot.org/

Re:Value

[phantomfive]

Interesting, I didn't know Digg was still around.

Re:Value

[hairyfeet]

What is sad to me (and I personally blame the allowing of AC posts and broken mod system, but that's another story) is how much lower the quality of threads are now. In the golden age the only AC posts you got were in the Penisbird GNAA vein and the majority of posts were insightful and would delve quite deeply into a subject. I remember being a part of 300+ threads on the advantages and disadvantages of various file systems, 200+ threads on string theory where guys from CERN would break down some of the more heady stuff for laymen like myself, hell even if you didn't agree you LEARNED and left knowing more than you knew before you got here.

Now? Now the only thing you'll learn is that Shill/Troll/Astroturfer is shorthand for "you disagree with me", that thanks to being able to AC bomb a thread its trivially easy for a real shill to divert a thread away from a topic negative to the parent corp, and that no matter what the topic or thread it quickly degrades into a 4chan level of posts, usually trashed by AC trolls spewing insults thus making sure no thread lasts beyond a couple dozen posts.

Sigh I've been looking high and low for a site that is actually nerdy but it seems like all the nerd sites have been replaced by Digg/Reddit/ FB style garbage. Surely there has to be a place out there where geeks can talk about science and tech without it being ruined by the channers, anybody know of such a place? OSNews is good for a few topics but holwerda rules the roost so only things he personally likes/dislikes will ever be there, surely there is someplace like the old /. out there?

Re:Value

[OneAhead]

Sorry I couldn't moderate this "funny" because I posted elsewhere.

Re:Value

[TapeCutter]

surely there is someplace like the old /. out there?

That place never existed and never will, you're experiencing what is known as 'nostalgia', the tendency to recall the pleasurable and forget the noise.

hell even if you didn't agree you LEARNED and left knowing more than you knew before you got here

When you first meet your wife all her stories were new and interesting, same deal with Slashdot (and the internet in general).

I personally blame the allowing of AC posts

AC frees the reader from any pre-existing bias for/against the author.

Re:Value

[Cryacin]

He's just waiting another 2 weeks for that to turn into $100,000?

Re:Value

[Zaelath]

If you want reply notification stop posting anon, whiner.

Re:Value

[Anonymous Coward]

$136 is an insult. I'd ignore it, too.

Except that it may turn into $1.36 million if Bitcoin keeps skyrocketing.

Re:Value

[hairyfeet]

BULLSHIT. Go to the wayback machine and look at a thread from 2003 (if they bothered to back any up) and compare to now. There hasn't been a thread reach 100 count in a good 4 years whereas before it was almost a daily occurrence and certainly a weekly one.

As for ACs? Again BULLSHIT, all ACs have done is make it so any troll or shill can derail a thread by simply sockpuppeting a couple of posts to make sure nobody talks bad about their employers! Go look at ANY story about the big three, Google,MSFT, or Apple, and see how quickly the ACs derail the threads, hell when it came to xbone you were lucky if you got more than 2 posts before an AC tried to switch the subject to Apple or Sony o ANYTHING other than the royal fucking the users were gonna get from the draconian policies MSFT was pushing.

So I'm sorry but it doesn't have a damned thing to do with nostalgia, it has to do with what was once a tech site becoming just another 4chan only frankly not as entertaining.

$136?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he'd be all over that if it was $136,000....

Stop making everything about Bitcoin, please.

Re:$136?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite right, my good AC, quite right.

As I recall, Slashdot had no shortage of stories about Flooz back in the day, so it's entirely proper for them to constantly bombard us about Flooz 2.0.

Re:$136?

[dreamchaser]

I'm not interested in Bitcoin either, but let's be fair. No fiat currency has any intrinsic value either. In the case of the US$, it hasn't been backed by anything of material value for a long time, since we went off the gold standard.

Re:$136?

[aliquis]

I think he'd be all over that if it was $136,000....

Thankfully he's finish!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Re: $136?

[Kremmy]

The problem with this argument is that the global economy is nothing but a gaggle of competing currencies being traded against each other, anyone can create a new standard which effectively creates wide-band inflation for all of them combined. The economy itself. Period.

Re:$136?

[shortscruffydave]

The US dollar is backed by the world's largest economy

Please remind me, how big is the national debt of the country with the world's largest economy?

Re:$136?

[Arkham]

I'm not interested in Bitcoin either, but let's be fair. No fiat currency has any intrinsic value either. In the case of the US$, it hasn't been backed by anything of material value for a long time, since we went off the gold standard.

True but US currency is backed by the "full faith and credit" of the US federal government, a body worth $66.07 trillion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_United_States) versus Bitcoin, which is backed by mathematics and some currency speculators.

Re:$136?

[im_thatoneguy]

I don't really care if it's backed by a material value myself. After all Gold is also only worth what you value it at as well. I trust the value of the USD for instance more than the value of Diamonds.

Re:$136?

[Ralph Wiggam]

Let's make two lists. "Things you can buy with US dollars" and "Things you can buy with bitcoin". That will tell you which one has more value in the real world.

Re: $136?

[Kalriath]

Yet as a New Zealander it costs me $20 to send anywhere from $1 to $1,000,000 to someone in Australia, and takes 3 hours. And that money is sent the same way Wells Fargo sends it. Don't assume that because you have a shitty bank that it reflects everyone's experience with the system.

Re: $136?

[DigiShaman]

I'm sorry, but there's a disconnect I'm not getting from your comment. Printing money is what causes both national debt and inflation. The two effects are one-in-the-same

Re:$136?

[TapeCutter]

No fiat currency has any intrinsic value either

The word "fiat" is redundant. That's the whole point of a "currency", it's a token of value, it's intrinsic value is irrelevant unless it is more than it's token value (as can happen with metal coins). The tokens free individual traders from constantly dealing with questions like - how many tea bags for a postage stamp? Currency is simply not possible without implicit trust that the tokens can be exchanged back into goods and services, you cannot eat silver and gold.

Re:$136?

[TapeCutter]

I trust the value of the USD for instance more than the value of Diamonds.

Money markets trust US bonds more than gold, but it is certainly not blind trust, the US have an overwhelming military advantage and a long history of faithfully honouring the bonds.

Re:$136?

[kbolino]

the US federal government, a body worth $66.07 trillion

The U.S. federal government has a negative net worth (specifically, of -$10.6 billion). The number you quoted represents the net worth of U.S. households and nonprofits (currently at $77.2 billion). That is not money that the federal government would have an easy time getting its hands on.

Bitcoin, which is backed by mathematics and some currency speculators.

As opposed to the U.S. dollar, which is backed only by currency speculators? The "full faith and credit" of the U.S. government just means that the government will always accept its own money. It doesn't give anything of value in exchange for them, so really the entire currency is predicated on other people's willingness to accept the U.S. dollar as a medium of exchange.

Re:$136?

[kbolino]

The numbers are off by a factor of 1000. Every "billion" is actually a trillion. Doesn't change the point at all, though.

Nah.

[WizardFusion]

I would think that "... just don't want to deal with Bitcoin" is spot on. For the small amount of money they will be getting, it's not worth the time.

Re:Nah.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Didn't know people sent money to that thing" is another.

Re:Nah.

[Attila Dimedici]

And/or were unaware that the money was there.

Linus' time

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus' time iss probably worth more than the time it takes to set up an account with an exchange, fiddle with bank numbers, and link everything up in your life to handle that bitcoin wallet than $136 allows.

Re:Linus' time

[inasity_rules]

$136 in 30 days or so? Could add up to quite a tidy sum over time...

Re:Linus' time

[NeverWorker1]

You mean $1,600/yr? And that's assuming that $136 is not just from the launch-hype but can be expected to continue on trend.

Re:Linus' time

[radiumsoup]

you're assuming he *has* to convert to dollars. It should be obvious that he could simply keep the bitcoin. Takes 2 minutes or less to start up an online wallet, which would be perfectly acceptable for a 1 bitcoin balance.

Re:Linus' time

[inasity_rules]

It isn't big money nor is it a primary source of income, but it may be worth the time. $136 is easily beer money for a month, depending where you live. Or it could be redirected to his favourite charity. Either way, why not?

Re:Linus' time

[Anonymous Coward]

you're assuming he *has* to convert to dollars. It should be obvious that he could simply keep the bitcoin. Takes 2 minutes or less to start up an online wallet, which would be perfectly acceptable for a 1 bitcoin balance.

Maintenance costs are far more than two minutes. For goodness sake, even downloading and installing a wallet, and education on how to use it and store it securely takes more than two minutes.

Plus, a mere $100 or so isn't one bitcoin, so now your into knowledge of fractional bitcoins, which leads to learning about exchanges, etc.

And then once you consider it a currency, then you need to know it's non-currency characteristics, the various new types of investing risk, the deflationary issues, etc. Personally, those risks are what made me laugh at the idea it could be used as currency, but one needs to learn them if dealing with bitcoins.

Two minutes, you're obviously only kidding yourself.

Re: Linus' time

[tom229]

I'm not sure why you'd have to be a bitcoin enthusiast and economics critic to cash out 0.136btc. You could download the Android wallet in about 20 seconds, give your address to the website to cash out, and you're done. The real problem for Linus is probably "why bother?". It's not like he can use bitcoin to pick up milk on the way home.

Re:Linus' time

[Kremmy]

6. Pretend I'm a noob and go google "generate bitcoin address" (5 seconds)

You made it a little too obvious that you're just pretending to be a noob. what's generate?

Re:Linus' time

[JoeMerchant]

It takes a couple hours of "brain time" to go from not understanding bitcoin to having a functional account that you trust.

I don't blame Linus if he'd rather spend his free time re-watching Ender's Game on DVD instead of figuring out bitcoin so he can (maybe) claim the price of a nice dinner for two in Portland / Helsinki.

Re:Linus' time

[Patch86]

$1600 isn't bad for essentially nothing- i.e., assuming (like Linus) you don't have to change your behaviour at all to get it. That's still a couple of weeks salary for most people.

As you say, assuming that this isn't just launch hype. Which I expect it is.

Re:Linus' time

[cbhacking]

Not in Finland! Beers seem to run about 7-9 Euro here, which is to say you might get about 12 beers out of it... that's more than I drink in a month but some than less of my colleagues drink in a weekend.

Re:Linus' time

[QuasiSteve]

6. google "how to get a bitcoin address"
6. google "what is a bitcoin address"
or just
6. google "bitcoin address"

They'll lead you to other links that generally go into online wallets and I agree that will add a few (to several) minutes of reading.
On the up side, it's for github users.. hopefully even when they're noobs they're tech-inclined :)

Re:Linus' time

[xeio87]

Even if he could magically find a secure online wallet (hint: they don't exist) in two minutes and transfer his balance.

He would have just inherited tax obligations, so now he literally has to pay money to hold bitcoin if he doesn't take the time to cash it out.

Re:Linus' time

[fulldecent]

>> ... but it may be worth the time. $136 is easily beer money for a month

Yeah... I remember being 14 years old too

Re:Linus' time

[CastrTroy]

Is that at the pub or from the beer/corner store? A decent beer in a pub in Canada will cost $6-$10, but I just picked up 4 cans of high quality beer for $10 last night, so about $2.50 a piece. If you like drinking swill, and purchase by the case, they can be about $1 per bottle. I think part of the high cost of beer in the pubs is that we have a pretty high minimum wage, even on tipped workers.

Re:Linus' time

[Kaenneth]

what's a bitcoin 'address', is it like an e-mail address? can I use my existing address? or like an IP address?

Re: Linus' time

[inasity_rules]

Wow. I pay R50 for 6 beers. Decent beer too.

Re: Linus' time

[inasity_rules]

Huh? Where I live that is a good 120+beers. I don't know any 14 year olds with that capacity.

136 dollars?

[Kardos]

A morning's worth of developer wages collected over half a year? Plus it's not money, the effort to get that converted into money is probably more than a morning. Why bother?

Re:136 dollars?

[Voltara]

Not to mention the hassle of claiming those bitcoin tips as income, when it's not exactly clear yet how to do that properly.

Re:136 dollars?

[tompaulco]

I would think like anything else, you claim them as income when you convert them to whatever currency your taxing authority does business in. I don't know of any government that has decided to tax them as assets yet, and they don't accept bitcoin, you can't tax it until it is converted to the currency they accept..

Re:136 dollars?

[danlip]

I don't think that is true. The US government won't accept tax payments in Euros either, but if someone pays me in Euros you can be damn sure they will want me to pay taxes on it even if I haven't converted it.

Re:136 dollars?

[viperidaenz]

A mornings worth?
More like an hours worth.

Re:136 dollars?

[tompaulco]

How are you going to pay them (they don't accept Euros) and how do they know how much you owe them. Do they go by the exchange rate at the time you were paid, or do they go by the exchange rate at the time that you change them to dollars?

Robotic News

[bradgoodman]

Just because it has the keywords "Bitcoin" and "Linus Torvalds" in the headline - it doesn't really mean its "news".

Re:Robotic News

[Kjella]

Just because it has the keywords "Bitcoin" and "Linus Torvalds" in the headline - it doesn't really mean its "news".

Oh, they seem happy enough to publish anything wtih a 50% hit rate on that. And I'm stupid enough to click the 2342564354th Bitcoin story and leave a comment, so shame on me.

Re:Robotic News

[Anonymous Coward]

ITWorld clickbait submitted by the article author and mindlessly frontpaged by timothy. Move along...

Re:Robotic News

[aliquis]

But the bitcoins was "for nerds."

Re:Robotic News

[AthanasiusKircher]

Just because it has the keywords "Bitcoin" and "Linus Torvalds" in the headline - it doesn't really mean its "news".

Personally, I've been finding lately that if it has the word "Bitcoin" in the headline, chances are that it's actually "anti-news" -- it actually sucks away collective "news-worthiness" from any site it appears on.

In all seriousness, the Slashdot editors and a lot of people around here must be invested in Bitcoin and banking on all the speculation going on. The strongest correlation to Bitcoin's value seems to be the amount of media attention it receives. The daily Bitcoin story here is getting ridiculous.

So you know what? I'm taking the Slashdot pledge -- from this day forward, I refuse to click on any story with "Bitcoin" in the headline. I refuse to comment.

I'm tired of debating with folks who have little clue about how currency works. I'm tired of debating with gold fanatics, or people who bizarrely think that deflation is a good thing. I'm tired of all the stupid arguments about exactly what sort of analogy is adequate to describe the kind of finance scheme is driving the value of cryptocurrencies -- Ponzi schemes, multi-level marketing, pump-and-dump, whatever. Followed, inevitably, by Wikipedia links describing all the details of various financial schemes, and why Bitcoin is none of them. What the heck cares?

Look, you guys want to invest in Bitcoin? Go ahead. Believe it will save the world or allow you to have your privacy or whatever. Maybe it will -- in like five or ten years or something. Maybe.

For now, it's just another speculative venture. You could just as well be debating the value of investing in any one of hundreds of companies or natural resources or commodities or whatever. What the heck makes Bitcoin so freakin' special? (And please, PLEASE -- don't answer that rhetorical question. I've heard a thousand variations on the answers.)

Come on, folks -- take the Bitcoin pledge with me! Save Slashdot from this nonsense.

Re:Robotic News

[Kremmy]

The problem is that all the arguments apply equally well to currency in general. The arguments are basically reinforcing that Bitcoin is in fact a currency like any other. There's not going to be any way around that no matter how blue in the face you get.

Re:Robotic News

[Algae_94]

Oh damn! Someone just got told! Now we know that not only is his exaggeration not true, it's not even possible. Keep up the good work poking holes in obviously false exaggerated statements AC.

Re:Robotic News

[JazzLad]

I'll just leave this here ...

Re:Robotic News

[Kremmy]

I'm beginning to question whether that word even has meaning anymore.

Re:Robotic News

[CAIMLAS]

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I miss the Slashdot days when there were cool stories about the Stanford computing lab matchbox PC and wearable gear that was way ahead of its time...

bitcoins...

[mythix]

lol...

that's all.

Genius

[Spad]

"I know, let's set up a tip service that's totally unrelated to what you're tipping for, has no input from the people you're tipping and provides the tips in a currency that half the recipients either won't want or don't care about"

Re:Genius

[pla]

"I know, let's set up a tip service that's totally unrelated to what you're tipping for, has no input from the people you're tipping and provides the tips in a currency that half the recipients either won't want or don't care about"

If only people from your local area want to tip you - Great! You have it absolutely right, just do it in the local currency.

Not too many people want to pay their bank's BS foreign exchange fees to leave (the equivalent of) a dollar in the tip jar, though, nor do most people want to get tips in 27 different currencies.

BitCoin makes a nice compromise that eliminates most of the problems of dealing with a global market that old-school government-issued currencies and their authorized middle-men just can't compete with.

That said, others have already pointed out the biggest problem here... $136 for the single biggest name in Open Source (even before RMS, I dare say)??? Just... Wow. I wouldn't bother giving out my contact info to collect such a pittance either.

Re:Genius

[nine-times]

That said, others have already pointed out the biggest problem here... $136 for the single biggest name in Open Source (even before RMS, I dare say)??? Just... Wow. I wouldn't bother giving out my contact info to collect such a pittance either.

On the other hand, it's a relatively new kind of transaction provided with a "currency" associated with illegal activity and scam artists. If I got some sort of notification by email informing me that I'd received $136 and I could collect it in bitcoins by signing up to some service-- well, I'd hope that email would be filtered out as spam before I ever saw it.

That doesn't mean it's a completely terrible idea.

Re:Genius

[Kaenneth]

Back when PayPal was a new thing I thought it seemed cool, and I had gotten a small windfall of money, I sent some unsolicited 'tips' to a few of the early webcomics that I enjoyed.

In response, a couple of them thanked me on their front page, and posted an address if anyone else wanted to donate.

Other webcomics soon copied (or thought of independently) and donate buttons quickly proliferated.

That was also the last thing I used PayPay for, as they quickly turned evil.

Bitcoin, at least, isn't run by a corporation, and has no say in transactions (like ordering antique violins destroyed)

Re:Genius

[crutchy]

Bitcoin, at least, isn't run by a corporation, and has no say in transactions (like ordering antique violins destroyed)

i don't understand how bitcoin advocates can be so confident in the security of the system

after all, it's digital, and nothing digital is secure... ever

hackers (and governments) prove this repeatedly

most bitcoin advocates aren't security experts

even if bitcoin is secure today, there is no guarantee that it will be secure tomorrow

https://www.schneier.com/blog/...
not a comment by bruce himself, but one that i think rings true. its also the opinion of economic pundit peter schiff:
"Bitcoin, like the US dollar only has value when the vast majority of us believe it has value. Its intrinsic value to the community is that it enables exchange; if it has no velocity it has no value. Not eveyone believes Bitcoins have value nor is there an universally accepted value - some are made more cheaply than other (e.g no minimum hourly wage). Because of these facts, the system can readily collapse .... say when the market is cornered."

Some developers don't know

[Chemisor]

Gee, a service I have never heard of before is saying that maybe I have a valuable stash of bitcoins given to me by grateful users of my OSS project and that for a small fee they would be happy to liberate it for me for a tidy profit. Where have I heard this before?

Re:Some developers don't know

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly I had no idea I was related to so many foreign princes!

Re: Some developers don't know

[Anonymous Coward]

To claim the rewards you need to give the app rights to read and write your github profile, including writing email address and ssh keys. The app claims this is just so they can see your email, but this is available from the commit anyways. Seems like a big scam to me.

Not worth the potential legal problems

[Anonymous Coward]

136 bucks to potentially get some special attention from the US government, sponsored by Microsoft and Apple? No thanks.

Re:Not worth the potential legal problems

[gnasher719]

136 bucks to potentially get some special attention from the US government, sponsored by Microsoft and Apple? No thanks.

Please explain why Microsoft and Apple would do anything to harass Linus Torvalds?

Re:Not worth the potential legal problems

[tepples]

For one thing, the file system layer of Linux contains technology patented by Microsoft: VFAT and exFAT. The VFAT patent is set to expire soon, but a device has to support exFAT in order to claim support for SDXC (64 GB or larger SD cards).

Re:spam

[beltsbear]

Yes. When you see the story that says Bitcoin on the title, do not click on it.

I feel the same way about all of these gun related stories as you do about the Bitcoin ones but it is no big deal. Just ignore them. It is not like SPAM in your email box that might cause a phone notification or fill up your inbox. Slashdot is no your inbox.

Unicorn Horns!

[rockmuelle]

Why aren't /. readers collecting the virtual unicorn horns I left for them on my website?? Don't they appreciate the gesture and realize the value they're leaving on the table??

Re:Unicorn Horns!

[dkleinsc]

In at least a few cases, they may have tried to pick them up, and realized they couldn't because only virgins can touch unicorns.

Re:Unicorn Horns!

[McFly777]

So there shouldn't by a problem... Afterall, this is slashdot.

what's the address?

[Janek Kozicki]

give a link to this friggin' BTC address, for example on blockchain.info (that's the only interesting piece of information here), apart from that it's a joke news.

Perhaps he ignores it for some tax or legal reason

[Kaptain Kruton]

I don't know much about tax laws and financial laws other than they can often be complex and confusing. I suspect the complexity grows substantially with non-profit organizations (such the Linux Foundation, in which Torvalds is a key person). Perhaps by accepting tips for what is essentially his job, he is opening up a can of worms that he doesn't want to touch.

That is just wild speculation, though.

Payout: 1% per commit

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you give any donation, it takes 69 commits before even half of your donation is distributed. And then another 69 commits before half of the rest gets distributed.

So if you are a developer in a large, fast-moving project, you'll receive very little because it will be distributed among many people, and if you are dominating a small project, you'll receive very little because Tip4Commit will hold onto most of the donations for a very long time.

Re:Maybe it's the taxes

[jandrese]

The government doesn't care about a random $136, but if you really wanted to report it you would put it as gift income. If you started making real money with this then it would be an issue, but this is way down in the noise.

He REALLY shouldn't from a trade-off standpoint

[cloud.pt]

See it from a common, millionaire person point-of-view:

Why would Linux Torvalds, a (probable) millionaire, want to share his personal information on a bleeding edge platform like Tip4Commit, or worse, share his bank information with an exchange service (that could very well be seized, go down, open bankruptcy, pose security flaws) when he wants to convert the wallet to common currency.

Re:He REALLY shouldn't from a trade-off standpoint

[faedle]

FWIW, while I'm sure Linus is living quite comfortably, and may in fact be a millionaire (which really isn't that much money these days: my parents were paper millionaires and they were a postal carrier and a government clerk.. they only were "millionaires" because the Southern California house they owned wound up being worth $600,000, plus another $400,000 combined in retirement assets), but he's not exactly living the life of a 1%er. From what I understand, he earns a respectable salary from the Linux Foundation, but not anything out-of-line for a talented software engineer in Portland.

He's not exactly shuttling around the West Hills in a limo. Unless you consider TriMet MAX (Portland's light-rail system) a limo.

Re:He REALLY shouldn't from a trade-off standpoint

[cloud.pt]

Whatever his current net worth is, he probably makes more in 1-2 hours work than 136$. Is it really worth creating potentially hack-luring accounts on Tip4Commit and (e.g.) Mt.Gox (the apparently most reliable exchange)?

Only decent reason to do this would be giving his thumbs-up to Bitcoin, but does he really need to? I believe he's seen as an open-source guy, not as a "let's decentralize the financial systems and currencies of the world" activist. An despite deciding to do it for that reason, not even safeguarding his bank accounts would prevent at least providing real personal addresses and social security numbers in order to actually withdraw the stuff.

Re:He REALLY shouldn't from a trade-off standpoint

[bussdriver]

Try converting the DOW over the last century adjusting for inflation. You'll see it's gone nowhere - it only seems to go up because the number gets higher but it ends up only matching inflation.

In the 1980s a million $ was a huge unobtainable amount for nearly everybody on earth (but that didn't stop people from unrealistic dreams of earning that much.) Not so much today. Thinking in terms of real items, a cheap car back in the 80s was $10,000 cheaper than it is today. There has been a huge amount of inflation. Property values went up more than most everything due to additional factors, so it's not a great measure other than one needs shelter (sadly it's over emphasis in the economy creates a disconnect from shelter and investment. So we have to fight to get solar panels because some idiot neighbor is worried about their property value in 30 years when they move to a retirement home.)

Re:Copyright infringement.

[ortholattice]

I don't see what this has to do with "copyright infringement". Anyway, from what I could tell, Tip4Commit takes a 5% cut.

Not worth his effort

[Modern Primate]

According to some random website of potentially dubious accuracy, he makes 10 million a year and has a 150 million net worth. This is approximately how much money he makes in 7 minutes. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that there are probably better uses of his time than the equivalent of picking a penny up off the sidewalk.

Bitcoin is the currency of drug addicts

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hardly surprising Torvalds doesn't accept a "tip" that could equally likely be obtained through mining or selling drugs or illegal pornography.

Would you accept dirty money from people that preyed on others? Normal people wouldn't.

Re:Bitcoin is the currency of drug addicts

[r.freeman]

Obvious troll is obvious. Glad that you didn't ommit "omg think of the chilren" or some other induendo in your fearmongering FUD.

... that could equally likely be obtained through mining or selling drugs or illegal pornography.

bitcoin hashmoney - could equally likely be obtained through mining or selling drugs or illegal pornography.

US/EUR/YEN/BRICK - could equally likely be obtained through mining or selling drugs or illegal pornograph. In addition, US dollars actually *fund* war and murder of children (inflation sponsors government which pays for wars).
Free currencies like bitcoin are merly means of exchange that does not SPONSOR war unless given users chooses to do so.

infringement

[ZombieBraintrust]

Linus Torvalds has exclusive rights to his name and appearence. He has copyright on the code he creates. They call him a user but if he didn't sign up for the service then they don't have any kind of relationship. He didn't agree they could take a 5% cut of tips made to him. He didn't agree they can collect tips on his behalf. Do they have a licence to make profits off tipping Linux? Is that in GPL? If they were a non profit or a charity then it would not matter as much.

Re:infringement

[Desler]

Saying his name in a story is not copyright infringement. Nor is this scam service using his likeness or claiming he is a user. One can hope your simply trollbaiting and not a moron.

Re:infringement

[ZombieBraintrust]

I agree it is not copyright infringement. The site could be infringing his publicity rights. This scam service is using his name. People have given them money thinking it will go to Linus when Linus doesn't even have an account with them.

Re:infringement

[Desler]

Where is the service using his name? It doesn't appear on their main page or any page I've looked at on their site. The article mentions his name, but so what? You don't need permission to mention a name in an article.

Re:infringement

[Desler]

They're telling people "Would you like to give Linus some money? We'll do it in your behalf (while taking a % of it for ourselves)".

No they aren't. Their website says no such thing.

Re:alternative explanation

[Desler]

Or an even simpler explanation: this is a no-name startup that next to no one has ever heard of or cares about.

Re:Intrinsic?

[Joce640k]

Sure, but gold has been used as an exchange medium since before the beginning of civilization. Everybody knows what gold is and everybody thinks it has value. The wearing of gold is a symbol of wealth almost anywhere in the world. Part of the US reserve is a big pile of gold in Fort Knox.

Bitcoin? Not so much.

Free software

[koja86]

Might be a philosophical question whether tipping a developer is not in conflict with free software idea.

Re:Free software

[iggymanz]

nonsense, Linus already makes money producing "free software" (GPL'd).

no conflict whatsoever.

Re:Free software

[Desler]

How would it be in conflict, exactly?

Re:Free software

[jones_supa]

The cold fact is that when people want "open source", they mostly just want something that is free in beer.

Next time, when someone is in need of open source solution, ask them for what they actually need the source code, and you'll see.

Re:Free software

[Desler]

Sure, freetards believe that, but their opinions hardly matter.

Re:spam

[Desler]

Ignoring it is not the same as being able to block it, though.

Not a gift ... an honorarium

[oneiros27]

This would likely qualify as an honorarium (a payment given for professional services that are rendered nominally without charge) ... which is taxable in the US.

As with anything else ... the government *might* not care about it for most people, but once they've decided they don't like you, they're more than willing to find any little law they can to get you.

Until the money gets to be high enough that it's worth contacting a tax attorney about, it's better to just not take it.

(I am *not* a tax attorney, but I have received honoraria before (I think it was $500), and they gave me the appropriate paperwork to include when filing my taxes)

tip4commit is a pretty good scam

[Adm.Wiggin]

You will get your money when your balance hits the threshold of 0.00100000

95% of deposited funds will be used to tip for new commits.

each new commit receives 1% of available balance

Re:Copyright infringement.

[Sockatume]

Unfortunately there are lots of organisations like this and they seem to be immune. I gave up trying to figure out how many groups (Copyright Licencing Agency being the top of the list) could be claiming "licencing fees" for the right to reprint journal articles I've written*, and just wrote it off as a loss. I suspect almost everyone else the CLA is ostensibly collecting fees for too.

*Yes, you'd better believe this is fair use.

Disappearing act?

[Captain_Chaos]

What's the betting that the site will one day suddenly disappear, taking all the outstanding donations which happen to be on their accounts with them?

Ron Paul will take them

[EmagGeek]

He doesn't care what fanatical group of zealots funds his campaign of anti-Semitic insanity.

They can - but not to the EFF

[QuasiSteve]

They already can - just enter the Bitcoin address of whoever in the settings.

However, the EFF would not be an option, as the EFF stopped accepting Bitcoin and the EFF ditched their Bitcoin donated prior to that decision.

Re:They can - but not to the EFF

[amaurea]

Then they changed their mind, though they make it a bit more difficult than usual.

Re:They can - but not to the EFF

[QuasiSteve]

Ah, shoot. I'd mod you up if I could. The EFF is nothing if not horribad at (internal) page promotion and redacting.

Suitcases full of 100 USD bills

[tepples]

a "currency" associated with illegal activity and scam artists

Are you describing cash?

Re:Suitcases full of 100 USD bills

[tftp]

Percentage-wise, cash is used primarily for legal activities. Its role is diminishing with proliferation of alternative payment instruments (plastic, checks, online transfers, Bill Pay services) but so far cash has plenty of legitimate uses.

On the other hand, BTC shines in gray economy, where you need to pay online but do not want your identity to be known. See the case of BitInstant - the exchange was heavily dependent on Silk Road. BTC is either pointless, or inconvenient, or financially unattractive to pay for gas or for coffee. Credit cards are far more convenient - the transaction gets confirmed instantly, and you get insurance against fraud. Many banks also offer one-time, unique c/c numbers that you may use with a vendor who you do not trust. All the benefits of BTC (for legal stuff) and no hassle.

Re:Suitcases full of 100 USD bills

[crutchy]

the majority of all fiat currencies in circulation is likely used for illegal activities... even "gold" etfs

Re:spam

[master5o1]

Here, I just made a little bookmarklet to make the bitcoin articles have a lower opacity.

javascript:$('#firehoselist [id^="firehose-"]').each(function(i){var $article=$(this);if(/bitcoin/i.test($article.text()))$article.css("opacity",0.25)});

Clearly I make a draggable link but you're probably a smart cookie and can figure out where to put it.

Eureka!

[OneAhead]

Wearable bitcoins! Thank you, you're a genius! Surely you won't mind me patenting the idea!

Poe's Law disclaimer: this post is solely intended as a parody of some of the more brain-dead bitcoin-related initiatives we've seen, and is not meant to criticize or endorse parent or bitcoin.

Audience participation

[TapeCutter]

I worked with well paid engineer in the 90's who used to go busking on the street with his flute. He travelled extensively for work and made a point of busking in as many different cities as was practicable The coins thrown in the hat were a prop for his act, not the point of it.

Re:spam

[crutchy]

is it possible to block bitcoin spam from slashdot?

maybe try something like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...

not sure if you could filter out entire articles (i haven't bothered looking at slashdot html) but you could at very least replace the word "bitcoin" with something less annoying, like maybe "frosty piss"

either that or write your own little slashdot browser using a socket... that way you could filter however you like, and maybe block out all the ads, js, images, css bullshit as well. probably would be a real hit if you released it.

Is Linus's time worth more than $136/h?

[Gallomimia]

Not saying it would take an hour for him to bother with collecting these tips, but let's consider whether it's actually worth the time it would take Mister Torvalds to actually do the act you're begging him to do. The earlier posts regarding the amount of the tips are rather correct. It's pretty small considering. Nice thought tho, getting actual pay to the devs who make all of the software we love to grab for free (beer), on top of the fact that it's open sourced and free (libre)