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Would Linus Torvalds Please Collect His Bitcoin Tips?

Posted by timothy on from the just-keeping-them-backed-up-on-the-internet dept.

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."

17 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Value by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

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    No sig today...
    1. Re:Value by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

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      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    2. Re:Value by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Value by gbjbaanb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Value by Burning1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    5. Re:Value by Bryan+Ischo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

  2. Nah. by WizardFusion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. 136 dollars? by Kardos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  4. Robotic News by bradgoodman · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Robotic News by Kjella · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

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      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  5. Genius by Spad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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"

  6. Some developers don't know by Chemisor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Some developers don't know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    2. Re: Some developers don't know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  7. Unicorn Horns! by rockmuelle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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??

  8. Re:$136? by Arkham · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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    - Vincit qui patitur.
  9. Disappearing act? by Captain_Chaos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?