Re: [freenet-dev] Project Status

[Ian Clarke]

I'm going to talk to Xor tomorrow, but under no circumstances can Freenet
go into debt to anyone.  As of right now, FPI has $1168.32 in our bank
account, and $1515.77 in Paypal.  Xor should not do any work that would
exceed this combined amount.

Ian.

On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 3:37 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide 
wrote:

> Am Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2015, 16:39:29 schrieb xor:
> > I offer to write my bills as fully interest-free debt, with no time
> limit for
> > payment whatsoever. "Pay as soon as there are enough donations".
>
> I did not answer before, because I did not consider it my place to
> answer. Today I learned that this was interpreted as agreement.
> It was not agreement.
>
> I do not think that Freenet Project Inc. can afford to go into debt.
>
> And from what I saw in 15 minutes of googling, Ian might be liable for
> negligency for agreeing to this. That would mean that he would be
> personally liable for the debt of FPI. Given that we cannot predict
> donations this is something I would not do. Knowing that the first X
> months of donations would go towards paying debt could also be a
> pretty strong deterrent for potential donors.
>
> Weeks ago I sent you a link to a funding agency which I deem most
> likely to be able to fund your work. They offer 30k for a year, which
> is roughly what you’re billing right now (as far as I know).
> I don’t have that link anymore, and no time right now to dig through
> the IRC history. If you don’t have it anymore, ask me for it on
> tuesday evening.
>
> I’d like to be friendly here, but in matters of “we are broke” and
> “will we promise stuff we don’t have?”, making friendly promises would
> be dishonest. And getting Ian in legal trouble is a no-go.
>
> Best wishes,
> Arne




-- 
Ian Clarke
Founder, The Freenet Project
Email: i...@freenetproject.org
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Re: [freenet-dev] Project Status

[xor]

On Saturday, November 14, 2015 10:37:54 PM Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> I do not think that Freenet Project Inc. can afford to go into debt.

What is the non-affordable consequence of debt *without* interest and 
*without* any time limit for payment?
What can happen?

> And from what I saw in 15 minutes of googling, Ian might be liable for
> negligency for agreeing to this.

Please provide a source for this; as I cannot imagine any way to come to this 
conclusion.

> That would mean that he would be personally liable for the debt of FPI.

I hereby proclaim officially that I won't ever request Ian to give me any of 
his personal money to pay for stuff which I did bill FPI for, not him.

Why would I even want to do that? I'm completely aware that Freenet is funded 
by donations, not by Ian. Why would I ask Ian for money?

> Given that we cannot predict donations this is something I would not do.

Well, if this would be too risky for you, maybe be happy that someone else 
offers to risk his personal fate to do it?
Sorry if I have to be that passive aggressive, but it is really frustrating to 
make such offers and only get offense back for them.

I had expected people to for once step back from their flamewars and be happy 
that some part of the project can continue to churn out code even if there's 
no funding temporarily...
The offense instead is killing me on the inside.
Can't this project ever stop the toxic attitude?

> Knowing that the first X
> months of donations would go towards paying debt could also be a
> pretty strong deterrent for potential donors.

If having very little money is in fact a deterrent for potential donors as you 
just said, then having lots of money is an incentive.
So will people donate more money if we write on the website "we already have $ 
1 billion of funding, and we want more" ?

> Weeks ago I sent you a link to a funding agency which I deem most
> likely to be able to fund your work. They offer 30k for a year, which
> is roughly what you’re billing right now (as far as I know).
> I don’t have that link anymore, and no time right now to dig through
> the IRC history. If you don’t have it anymore, ask me for it on
> tuesday evening.

Yes, thanks again.
I had already added this to the list of potential donors I had written: 
https://wiki.freenetproject.org/index.php?title=Fundraising=2928=2912

I'll deal with contacting donors once it has been decided whether fred 1471 
will be deployed any soon: It contains 6 months of my work which haven't been 
deployed yet due to a lack of a fred release. It would be fair to give it to 
people first before asking for more money.

(Don't worry: If it would be too much of a hassle to get the fred release out 
soon, I will ask nevertheless. I still want to do this carefully.)

Another blocker why I didn't contact anyone yet is this:
Before we put a news entry "we ran out of funds" on the website, I plan to 
gather a Wiki article of news websites which this news of ours could be 
submitted to. This needs to be done *before* we put our news article on our 
website: We need to contact news sites ASAP then. They won't publish old 
stuff, old stuff is not *new*s. And knowing how things usually end up, it 
might suddenly take weeks for us to write a list of news sites to contact, and 
then the news is already old... So better write the list before we push the 
news.

> I’d like to be friendly here, but in matters of “we are broke” and
> “will we promise stuff we don’t have?”, making friendly promises would
> be dishonest.

I am perfectly fine with being promised money which doesn't exist yet:
I believe that Freenet will succeed, and we will get funding.
The possibly that it won't happen is my problem, you don't have to worry about 
that :)

Of the 19 entries in the fundraising list, we only asked 3, and we only got 1 
"no". That is nothing.
And there are potentially *thousands* of donors to ask beyond that list: The 
NSA scandal for sure has got a lot of people interested in a free Internet.

Is it really time to give up and shoo off our assets? Employees are assets. 
Yes, maybe I do suck. Who am I to judge myself?
But it does seem somewhat clear that years of hanging on the #freenet IRC 
channel at least gives some basic education I hope, and throwing away that 
education (by telling people to leave as soon as there are a few days without 
money even though they want to stay) sounds not like a good investment in the 
future.

Let's please realize that Freenet has been constantly online for over a decade 
probably, we've got 100% uptime, and people are constantly churning out 
discussion and code.
The project is alive.
No need to give up.


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Re: [freenet-dev] Project Status

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Am Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2015, 16:39:29 schrieb xor:
> I offer to write my bills as fully interest-free debt, with no time limit for 
> payment whatsoever. "Pay as soon as there are enough donations".

I did not answer before, because I did not consider it my place to
answer. Today I learned that this was interpreted as agreement.
It was not agreement.

I do not think that Freenet Project Inc. can afford to go into debt.

And from what I saw in 15 minutes of googling, Ian might be liable for
negligency for agreeing to this. That would mean that he would be
personally liable for the debt of FPI. Given that we cannot predict
donations this is something I would not do. Knowing that the first X
months of donations would go towards paying debt could also be a
pretty strong deterrent for potential donors.

Weeks ago I sent you a link to a funding agency which I deem most
likely to be able to fund your work. They offer 30k for a year, which
is roughly what you’re billing right now (as far as I know).
I don’t have that link anymore, and no time right now to dig through
the IRC history. If you don’t have it anymore, ask me for it on
tuesday evening.

I’d like to be friendly here, but in matters of “we are broke” and
“will we promise stuff we don’t have?”, making friendly promises would
be dishonest. And getting Ian in legal trouble is a no-go.

Best wishes,
Arne

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