Re: PaySwarm-based Debian donations (was: Re: KickStarter for Debian packages)
Le Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 11:20:47PM -0400, Manu Sporny a écrit : 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) Dear Manu, I like the idea of a DONATE file to facilitate donations to upstream projects. At this point, I wonder what would be the role of apt. - If the goal is to donate for packages installed in the system, the DONATE files can be treated in a similar way to the FreeDesktop menu files: packages would install them in a given directory, and any donation system would parse them and detect additions and removals with Dpkg triggers. One advantage is that software using the DONATE files to help the user to send money or bitcoins could be written independantly of the packaging system. - Apt would be useful if the goal is to gather the information in control files of the Debian archive (see DEP 11 for something a bit similar: http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal). But I think that this is not desirable, as it opens the risk of having conflicting settings when using third-party repositories. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- 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/20130617120411.gg7...@falafel.plessy.net
Re: PaySwarm-based Debian donations (was: Re: KickStarter for Debian packages)
On Sonntag, 16. Juni 2013, Manu Sporny wrote: 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. and then you continue to ignore these concerns and continue with your agenda :-( please go away and improve something else. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: PaySwarm-based Debian donations (was: Re: KickStarter for Debian packages)
On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 11:20:47PM -0400, Manu Sporny wrote: 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. I am afraid I find this whole approach not just questionable, but likely to distort, and damage, the free software development processes in general, and Debian development in particular. I suggest we, the Debian project, approach this very carefully. While the reality is slightly more complex, we are currently in a state where we make technical decisions mostly based on what is the right thing to do. We sometimes disagree on what the right thing is, but the disagreements are based on our interpretations of shared goals and values, and different evaluations of the various solutions, and different emphasis on various technical virtues. The more we introduce money into the development process, the higher the risk is that we get away from making decisions based on what the technically right thing is for us and for our users, and the more we will decide things based on how we can maximise our income. Be careful what you reward, because you will get more of it. Even if you don't actually want more of it. You suggest that package maintainers get to suggest where donations go. There's two glaring problems there. First, it disregards all the great things people do to make Debian better that are _not_ about packaging at all. We have translators, documentation writers, wiki gardeners, bug triagers, people who answer questions on the debian-user mailing lists in various languages, people who help staff Debian booths at various conferences, people who run user groups. And so on, and so forth. None of this work is highly visible, and it's really hard to target them with donations, yet it's often more work than maintaining packages. Second, even considering package maintainers only, targeted donations would unfairly favour those maintaining the most visible packages. If maintaining, say, Iceweasel or GNOME or Emacs results in getting money, that will certainly lessen the interest in maintaining, say, Make, coreutils, or Grub. If having your name on four hundred packages gives you ten times more money than maintaining one package well, what happens to average package quality? These are not unsolveable problems, I'm sure. However, I don't think your attitude to solving them will result in a good solution, and you may wreck things on the way. You push for a particular payment solution, and dismiss the experiences and concerns of your critics. I fear this is not a recipe for success. (Disclaimer: I used to have a consulting contract to improve the technical quality of Debian, which gave me a livelihood for about 1.5 years. The lasting result of that was piuparts.) -- http://www.cafepress.com/trunktees -- geeky funny T-shirts http://gtdfh.branchable.com/ -- GTD for hackers -- 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/20130616090548.GD31164@havelock
Re: PaySwarm-based Debian donations (was: Re: KickStarter for Debian packages)
On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 10:05:48AM +0100, Lars Wirzenius wrote: You suggest that package maintainers get to suggest where donations go. There's two glaring problems there. First, it disregards all the great things people do to make Debian better that are _not_ about packaging at all. Yeah, I agree with this concern as well. Everything which tries to pay/tip Debian contributors and stays at the package level only is doomed to fail, and bring with it some of the nasty consequences that have been highlighted. OTOH, I think it would be fine to have something at the package level to pass on donations to our upstreams, as well as to ease donating to the Debian project as a whole. See [1,2], already mentioned by Paul Wise in his initial followup to this thread. [1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2013/05/msg00025.html [2]: http://upstream-metadata.debian.net/table/Donation All the problems that have been highlighted are related to pay/tip Debian contributors and the distorsions that institutionalizing that process might introduce. But we already have at least 2 other kinds of entities that actively seek donations (upstreams and Debian as a project), and we do tolerate that. Making it easier for them to seek donations doesn't seem problematic to me. On the contrary, there is an active debate on how to sustain Free Software development while at the same time keeping it away of companies and the need of turning a profit (see for instance [3]). [3]: https://lwn.net/Articles/511260/ Using Debian as a conduit to *ease* donation flows to FOSS that already exist seems an useful thing to do to me. That is, after all, exactly what [2] was meant for, maybe it can be improved and become more successful adopting some of Manu's ideas. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Former Debian Project Leader . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
PaySwarm-based Debian donations (was: Re: KickStarter for Debian packages)
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
