Thanks to everyone that has participated in the discussion thus far. :) I think there have been a number of solid concerns and issues raised, which I'm going to try and wrap into a proposal below.
I think it might help simplify the donations goal by framing it in the following way: Ultimately, where to send a donation is the decision of the person or organization doing the donation (the benefactor). Package maintainers, software developers, and project organizations can lobby for where they'd like to see the money go, but it's the benefactor that decides where they'd like to send the money in the end. Given that premise, all a package maintainer, software developer, or organization can do is make suggestions to the benefactor. Let's assume that there is a file named DONATE that is included with source distributions of Free Software. Its use is analogous to a README. A DONATE file lists a PaySwarm-compatible list of financial accounts (and percentages associated with each account) that should be the target of donations to the particular software project. This file can also be included in the debian/ subdirectory. When placed in that directory, it lists donations that the package maintainers feel should be performed on top of the upstream authors' DONATE file (if it exists). Finally, this file can also be included in the /etc/ directory (or maybe /etc/donate.conf?) to specify a list of donations that the distribution feels should be performed on top of all other donations. The files are composed together to suggest where donations should go to the sender. They are composed in this order: 1. Upstream project's DONATE file. 2. Package maintainers DONATE file. 3. System's DONATE file. So, when a benefactor types 'apt-donate apache2 $5', assuming 90% goes to ASF and 10% goes to Debian, they are provided with the following suggestion: """ Of your $5 donation: 1. $4.50 will go to the Apache Software Foundation 2. $0.50 will go to the Debian Project If you would like to adjust the amounts, enter the number beside the amount that you'd like to adjust. Do these amounts look good to you? (y/n) """ At this point, the benefactor can modify amounts or choose not to perform the donation at all. Things that are currently not provided in the proposal: 1. The format of the DONATE file. 2. How these DONATE files are installed onto the system, or discovered by apt-donate. 3. Whether or not these files should specify "for-hire" or "bounty board" URLs. This proposal attempts to address a number of concerns raised related to package maintainers having a variety of differing opinions on how we should handle donations. After reading through the proposal above, are there any issues or concerns that remain as a high to moderate risk? -- manu -- Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny) Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc. blog: Meritora - Web payments commercial launch http://blog.meritora.com/launch/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/51bd2f0f.1070...@digitalbazaar.com