Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 07:45:09PM -0400, mmlacak wrote: Neil, thanks for your answers. Pardon my ignorance, but did you give them as an official SPI member? I didn't give them as an official response from the board of SPI, but it can be considered as officially the personal views of a board member of SPI :) If so, may I ask you to reconsider accepting donations for any developer and any project, not just supported ones. It is certainly something we can consider, but again I point out that this really isn't the right forum to do so. I mean, there is no project which is set to financially support general open source community. I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'general open source community'. Most developers who need funding seem to be attached to a project. Your parent project, Debian, does this, only within its domain, that is source code. Well, SPI is Debian's parent project, so I'm not sure what you mean by my parent project being Debian. But, as much as Debian project contributes to an open source community, it also draws much from the same. I'm not really sure about this. Have you got a example on how to draws resources away from the open source community? So it seems to me that supporting only Debian and related projects is one sided, and, in a long run, not in a best interests of both community and Debian project. Well, SPI certainly supports more than Debian and it's associated projects. Have a look at http://www.spi-inc.org/projects You can get only as much as you're giving away. Why give less, if you could easily give more? This is possibly the crux of the matter: It's non-trivial to add more projects. Each one takes resources to manage the donations and account for them. To do this for a generic deveoper would be far beyond what we are able to offer. Regards, Neil -- * toresbe wonders what would happen if Ted Walther and Amaya were put in the same room Amaya toresbe: blood, sweat, tears and finally castration signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
Neil McGovern wrote: I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'general open source community'. 'General open source community' to me consists of all developers which have at least one open source project published. Most developers who need funding seem to be attached to a project. Would you clarify this, please? Do you consider 'developers attached to a project' to be: a) maintainers who port and repackage applications into various Debian distributions b) == a) + developers who started their app(s) from within Debian ( possibly as a response to a direct need of a Debian project ) c) == b) + developers of all programs incorporated into Debian distro. d) == c) + developers of all programs not included in any Debian distro, from which b) or c) developers copy-pasted some code into their own e) somebody else? Well, SPI is Debian's parent project, so I'm not sure what you mean by my parent project being Debian. One of the first sentences on a Debian donations page ( http://www.debian.org/donations ) reads: Debian is the name of the project, and Debian GNU/Linux is how the distribution we create is called. In order to handle money donations, we set up a non-profit corporation, Software in the Public Interest http://www.spi-inc.org/. Usually, parent is before its child, so I was thinking that if Debian set up SPI, than surely Debian must be its parent. I'm not really sure about this. Have you got a example on how to draws resources away from the open source community? Not draws and wastes, but copies from open source pool, and incorporates into distribution. Since somebody had to put effort into writing of a new version, even though it can be copied freely, it is, nevertheless, utilization of a resources outside of a Debian project. This, of course, depends on your answer to a question above. Given previous responses, I assumed your answer would be b). Well, SPI certainly supports more than Debian and it's associated projects. Have a look at http://www.spi-inc.org/projects I already know this. No matter how much projects SPI supports directly, more still aren't. This is possibly the crux of the matter: It's non-trivial to add more projects. Each one takes resources to manage the donations and account for them. To do this for a generic deveoper would be far beyond what we are able to offer. I understand. Will you organize support for donations as you answered in an email earlier, at least for projects supported by SPI? Regards, Mario -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
Neil wrote: On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 08:07:10PM -0400, mmlacak wrote: So, my question is: can we make SPI ( http://www.spi-inc.org/, http://www.debian.org/donations ) into monetary service which accepts from and is able to transfer money to any country in the world? In short no. This isn't SPI's purpose. Is able to deliver money basically from door to door ( post-office/bank to PO/B ) ? Yes. Doesn't require anything beside internet connection and local bank / post office account? No, we need the co-operation of the receiving party. Charges only some percentage for its own operational expenses, so there could be some sense in donating just a few bucks, and be sure that most of it gets to intended developer (and yes, this is crucial)? Yes Accepts donations for any developer and any project, not just supported ones? No. Provides traceable and secure transactions, even if it doesn't deliver within minutes, days, weeks? Yes. I'm npt quite sure why this hasn't been brought before the attention of SPI first. Neil -- moray hm, maybe wearing a black t-shirt while dusting my bedroom for the first time in years wasn't such a good idea Neil, thanks for your answers. Pardon my ignorance, but did you give them as an official SPI member? If so, may I ask you to reconsider accepting donations for any developer and any project, not just supported ones. I mean, there is no project which is set to financially support general open source community. Your parent project, Debian, does this, only within its domain, that is source code. But, as much as Debian project contributes to an open source community, it also draws much from the same. So it seems to me that supporting only Debian and related projects is one sided, and, in a long run, not in a best interests of both community and Debian project. You can get only as much as you're giving away. Why give less, if you could easily give more? Regards, Mario -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 08:07:10PM -0400, mmlacak wrote: So, my question is: can we make SPI ( http://www.spi-inc.org/, http://www.debian.org/donations ) into monetary service which accepts from and is able to transfer money to any country in the world? In short no. This isn't SPI's purpose. Is able to deliver money basically from door to door ( post-office/bank to PO/B ) ? Yes. Doesn't require anything beside internet connection and local bank / post office account? No, we need the co-operation of the receiving party. Charges only some percentage for its own operational expenses, so there could be some sense in donating just a few bucks, and be sure that most of it gets to intended developer (and yes, this is crucial)? Yes Accepts donations for any developer and any project, not just supported ones? No. Provides traceable and secure transactions, even if it doesn't deliver within minutes, days, weeks? Yes. I'm npt quite sure why this hasn't been brought before the attention of SPI first. Neil -- moray hm, maybe wearing a black t-shirt while dusting my bedroom for the first time in years wasn't such a good idea signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
mmlacak wrote: It's also being discussed at the moment if/how money affects developers. Well, lets make possible for money to come in, in the first place. In my opinion, money destroys. I believe it's already happening in Debian. However, many people don't seem to care or understand. Regards, Joey -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 08:07:10PM -0400, mmlacak wrote: So, my question is: can we make SPI ( http://www.spi-inc.org/, http://www.debian.org/donations ) into monetary service which accepts from and is able to transfer money to any country in the world? Is able Given that they depend on broken US banks, which among others are not fully able to even cash in checks without losing some of them, i don't think this would be a good idea at all. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
mmlacak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] What we do need, beside a good will, is a convenient, reliable, affordable international money transfer service. [...] They all aren't up to a general community benefit in long term. Mutual banking services exist in England, variously called things like cooperatives, credit unions and building societies. They exist for the benefit of their members (not the general community, but near enough for me) and some provide international money transfer more cheaply than you describe, charging only for their own operational expenses and are as traceable as the systems used allow. If such institutions or services do not exist in your country, then I suggest trying to create them. The ICA www.ica.coop may help. I don't think turning SPI into one is a good idea, as it doesn't necessarily involve free software, but I'd support SPI using one instead of its current banking providers, based on what I've seen of them. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
On Wed, Oct 11, 2006, Martin Schulze wrote: In my opinion, money destroys. I believe it's already happening in Debian. However, many people don't seem to care or understand. ENOARGUMENTS. -- Loïc Minier [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
Le mercredi 11 octobre 2006 09:20, Martin Schulze a écrit : mmlacak wrote: It's also being discussed at the moment if/how money affects developers. Well, lets make possible for money to come in, in the first place. In my opinion, money destroys. I believe it's already happening in Debian. However, many people don't seem to care or understand. It is sad. You don't seem to believe in Mankind at all. Seeing Bill Gates giving away billion dollars for paying medicines in Third World countries makes me believe that money does the reverse every often, for people's good. I do believe in this at any level, this is why I'm convinced money is not going to destroy Debian. -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006, Jérôme Marant wrote: Could you please do me and probably many others a favour and move this to private discussion. I do not like oversimplification and overgeneralisation like On Wed, 11 Oct 2006, Martin Schulze wrote In my opinion, money destroys. nor do I like thinks like Seeing Bill Gates giving away billion dollars for paying medicines in Third World countries makes me believe that money does the reverse every often, for people's good. as an argument. I do not want to say that paying medicine is bad, but the sentence above has not much more sense than the sentence above if you try to dive into the details. So if both makes no sense at all it is not even off topic on debian-project it seems to be even off topic on debian-curiosa. Thanks Andreas. -- http://fam-tille.de
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
Le mercredi 11 octobre 2006 14:59, Andreas Tille a écrit : as an argument. I do not want to say that paying medicine is bad, but the sentence above has not much more sense than the sentence above if you try to dive into the details. So if both makes no sense at all it is not even off topic on debian-project it seems to be even off topic on debian-curiosa. My point was that you can either use money for good things or bad things. I can see neither oversimplification nor overgeneralization in saying that. I guess you got me wrong. I'll stop participating the thread on your request. -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
MJ Ray wrote: mmlacak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] What we do need, beside a good will, is a convenient, reliable, affordable international money transfer service. [...] They all aren't up to a general community benefit in long term. Mutual banking services exist in England, variously called things like cooperatives, credit unions and building societies. They exist for the benefit of their members (not the general community, but near enough for me) and some provide international money transfer more cheaply than you describe, charging only for their own operational expenses and are as traceable as the systems used allow. If such institutions or services do not exist in your country, then I suggest trying to create them. The ICA www.ica.coop may help. I don't think turning SPI into one is a good idea, as it doesn't necessarily involve free software, but I'd support SPI using one instead of its current banking providers, based on what I've seen of them. Hope that helps, Now, that's constructive replay ;-) Banking services in Croatia, almost without exception, revolves at credit options. ( Trivia for you: which nation has the most BMWs per capita in the world? Croatian. Now you know how. ) Nobody is really interested in cooperation. Establishing institution or service from ground up would require significant capital at a begining. Not only that, you'd have to have a political support, and appropriate background to succeed. Both of which I, obviously enough, don't have. I stumbled upon MoneyBookers ( http://www.moneybookers.com/app/ ), it seems like a service we're looking for. Wikipedia uses it, and I suppose they made an informed pick, so it should be good enough for us.
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
Jérôme Marant wrote: It's also being discussed at the moment if/how money affects developers. Well, lets make possible for money to come in, in the first place. In my opinion, money destroys. I believe it's already happening in Debian. However, many people don't seem to care or understand. It is sad. You don't seem to believe in Mankind at all. Seeing Bill Gates giving away billion dollars for paying medicines in Third World countries makes me believe that money does the reverse every often, for people's good. Hmm, maybe it wold help Third World countries more if they were allowed to produce this medicine on their own for the own people without paying large chunks to the respective patent holders? Maybe it would help them more if they would have enough Knowledge to build such factories on their own? I do believe in this at any level, this is why I'm convinced money is not going to destroy Debian. I don't think it can entirely destroy Debian either, which is good, but I don't know in which state Debian will be. Regards, Joey -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
Le mercredi 11 octobre 2006 22:24, Martin Schulze a écrit : A. I said I would stop participating to the thread bu I could not resist. Seeing Bill Gates giving away billion dollars for paying medicines in Third World countries makes me believe that money does the reverse every often, for people's good. Hmm, maybe it wold help Third World countries more if they were allowed to produce this medicine on their own for the own people without paying large chunks to the respective patent holders? Maybe it would help them more if they would have enough Knowledge to build such factories on their own? You want to change the World, fine. I'm just explaining how money is able to (or is attempting to) improve it _right now_. The point is that money is not always for destruction. It depends on who makes use of it and how. I do believe in this at any level, this is why I'm convinced money is not going to destroy Debian. I don't think it can entirely destroy Debian either, which is good, but I don't know in which state Debian will be. Martin, how about you let it go? That is, being positive, keeping up the good work, spreading good mood, trusting Providence? -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
Martin Schulze wrote: mmlacak wrote: So, my question is: can we make SPI ( http://www.spi-inc.org/, http://www.debian.org/donations ) into monetary service which accepts from and is able to transfer money to any country in the world? Is able to deliver money basically from door to door ( post-office/bank to PO/B ) ? Doesn't require anything beside internet connection and local bank / post office account? Charges only some percentage for its own operational expenses, so there could be some sense in donating just a few bucks, and be sure that most of it gets to intended developer ( and yes, this is crucial ) ? Accepts donations for any developer and any project, not just supported ones ? Provides traceable and secure transactions, even if it doesn't deliver within minutes, days, weeks? FWIW: I don't think SPI should become an international bank. Nor do I believe that SPI has the resources to do so. That wasn't my original proposal either. I pretty much clumsy titled it international money transfer service, while, in fact, it could be just as well a bunch of individuals using whatever means to transport money from a country to another one, paid for their service as a volunteers. They should be organized under the umbrella of a SPI, so there would be some public supervision of their work, and they would be obligated to publicly document every and each money transaction. It might prove to be cheaper, better to transfer money in hoops, not directly from a one end of a globe to another, thus those volunteers would form a monetary P2P network. SPI comes into story as a keeper of a list of registered volunteers, supervises and reports on all monetary activity by its volunteers, represents its volunteers in a case of a legal dispute, and so on. It's also being discussed at the moment if/how money affects developers. Well, lets make possible for money to come in, in the first place. Regards, Joey Regards -- mario -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
mmlacak dijo [Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 06:27:12PM -0400]: FWIW: I don't think SPI should become an international bank. Nor do I believe that SPI has the resources to do so. That wasn't my original proposal either. I pretty much clumsy titled it international money transfer service, while, in fact, it could be just as well a bunch of individuals using whatever means to transport money from a country to another one, paid for their service as a volunteers. If you s/to transport/to legally transport/, you will soon find that the fees might not be trivial at all, and that you will better off paying a bank or similar agency to take care of that. I'm an SPI member (as non-acting as I can be, yes, but a member after all), and I do not want to be involved in a money laundry service. BTW, I just recovered a long-lost bank card from my washing machine :) -- Gunnar Wolf - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244 PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23 Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973 F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
mmlacak wrote: So, my question is: can we make SPI ( http://www.spi-inc.org/, http://www.debian.org/donations ) into monetary service which accepts from and is able to transfer money to any country in the world? Is able to deliver money basically from door to door ( post-office/bank to PO/B ) ? Doesn't require anything beside internet connection and local bank / post office account? Charges only some percentage for its own operational expenses, so there could be some sense in donating just a few bucks, and be sure that most of it gets to intended developer ( and yes, this is crucial ) ? Accepts donations for any developer and any project, not just supported ones ? Provides traceable and secure transactions, even if it doesn't deliver within minutes, days, weeks? FWIW: I don't think SPI should become an international bank. Nor do I believe that SPI has the resources to do so. It's also being discussed at the moment if/how money affects developers. Regards, Joey -- WARNING: Do not execute! This call violates patent DE10108564. http://www.elug.de/projekte/patent-party/patente/DE10108564 wget -O patinfo-`date +%Y%m%d`.html http://patinfo.ffii.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
On 10/9/06, mmlacak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, my question is: can we make SPI ( http://www.spi-inc.org/, http://www.debian.org/donations ) into monetary service which accepts from and is able to transfer money to any country in the world? Is able to deliver money basically from door to door ( post-office/bank to PO/B ) ? Doesn't require anything beside internet connection and local bank / post office account? Charges only some percentage for its own operational expenses, so there could be some sense in donating just a few bucks, and be sure that most of it gets to intended developer ( and yes, this is crucial ) ? Accepts donations for any developer and any project, not just supported ones ? Provides traceable and secure transactions, even if it doesn't deliver within minutes, days, weeks? That sounds great to me. Cheers, Torsten -- http://www.twerner42.de/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Proposal: SPI as international money transfer service
Let me cite Mr. Reiser ( http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS8278035161.html ): The legal costs, and the low rewards from open-source programming, had also been upsetting Mr. Reiser. In a 2005 email conversation, he wrote, 'Free software is not a good way to make money. We as a society don't create rewards for it. We could, but we don't. We could create a system in which hardware was taxed and the users allocated the taxes to the software they use, and that would fix the problem.' 'So, when I go to conferences, and people say odd things like 'It is an honor to meet you.,' doing free software is great, but in the Alameda County courts, if you don't have money, you are s***,' he added. Not that taxing hardware to pay for a free source development will work, but we should do something about it. Otherwise, open source community will continue to lose its brightest people, burned out after receiving no compensation for their best efforts. What we do need, beside a good will, is a convenient, reliable, affordable international money transfer service. PayPal and other dot-com kids generally aren't. Postal money orders ( and Eurogiro ) ain't much better. Western Union is, by far, most competent service available, only they'd charge me US $17+ for a single transaction, depends on an amount being transferred. They all aren't up to a general community benefit in long term. Inconvenient, unreliable, expensive. So, my question is: can we make SPI ( http://www.spi-inc.org/, http://www.debian.org/donations ) into monetary service which accepts from and is able to transfer money to any country in the world? Is able to deliver money basically from door to door ( post-office/bank to PO/B ) ? Doesn't require anything beside internet connection and local bank / post office account? Charges only some percentage for its own operational expenses, so there could be some sense in donating just a few bucks, and be sure that most of it gets to intended developer ( and yes, this is crucial ) ? Accepts donations for any developer and any project, not just supported ones ? Provides traceable and secure transactions, even if it doesn't deliver within minutes, days, weeks? I have a feeling that such a service would greatly encourage people to donate to open source developers, which in turn, would get support they need to continue giving to the public. Most people would like to help programmers, but they don't like the idea to spend most of their money on a service just to get money moved around. -- mario -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
