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Why don't you accept donations?

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Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#41

Post by 999900000999 »

irrational wrote: post #24
KMnO4 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donations should also result in no expectations. It’s a donation , not a support license.

Theoretically the same applies to Kickstarter. Supposedly it is not a pre-order platform, but everyone treats it that way and gets all bent out of shape if the reward never materializes.

Kickstarter can claim to be whatever it wants, but if I say if you give me $2,000 I'll do my best to delivermagical super shoes...

And I end up taking all the money and spending it a 2-month trip to Canada,I've sort of done something wrong. No matter what Kickstarter says, you can definitely be sued if you take someone's money and don't deliver what you promised.

I absolutely loved Kickstarter when it came out, but I don't think I've donated any money to any Kickstarter just because it's more stressful to try and keep track of whenever the hell I'm supposed to get my product.

Amazon and eBay are full of useless things I can get delivered tomorrow, why go on Kickstarter and wait 3 months or even a year?

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#42

Post by kokanee »

The_Colonel wrote: post #28
tombert wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The second you take any donation, you can't use the excuse of "I'm doing this work for free. Leave me alone if you don't like it" because at that point you aren't doing it for free. While you don't necessarily "owe" donors anything, that won't really matter because in their eyes, you were paid to do work, and you didn't do it.

> The second you take any donation, you can't use the excuse of "I'm doing this work for free. Leave me alone if you don't like it" because at that point you aren't doing it for free. No, I don't agree. Communicate clearly that donations are in no way payment for the work being / to be done, does not constitute any preferential treatment / service agreement, and you're good. This setup works for me well, and I have n…

One way to think about this is that people should donate based on value that they've already gained from the project, not additional value that they expect in the future.

That said, for an active maintainer who is currently accepting donations (ESPECIALLY recurring donations), making a good-faith effort to deliver on requests from supporters (certainly bugs, and ideally features) is expected. Failure to make that effort doesn't mean you owe anyone anything, but it might mean you're a jerk.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#43

Post by Kwpolska »

faet wrote: post #38
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #27

> I don't want the administrative workload coming with donations. It's absolutely shameful that over three decades into the internet age, we still don't have zero friction ways of accepting, sending and accounting for money on the internet.

Regardless of how you access it you just take what you've been paid and add it to 'other income' when filing your taxes. If you're getting "big" donations, stripe or paypal will send you a k1 if you make > 20k. Otherwise there are not really any other administrative things to worry about.

And what if you’re not in the US? The author of uBlock is in Quebec (or so says their GitHub profile), and various jurisdictions might have different rules on donations.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#44

Post by [deleted] »

KMnO4 wrote: post #7
smnrchrds wrote: post #6

> no donations = no expectations No donations should result in no expectations , but unfortunately all sorts of people will have all sorts of expectations from you when you release an open-source project, donations or not.

Donations should also result in no expectations. It’s a donation , not a support license.

[deleted]

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#45

Post by [deleted] »

vorpalhex wrote: post #20
jyap wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing free labor is devaluing your work. You are free to decline this work.

There's a difference in doing someone a small polite favor and doing unpaid labor. I definitely have previous employers to whom I'd give an hour of my time to sort out a quick issue, and for a lone hour it is not worth generating an invoice and dealing with taxes. At most I might accept a meal or a pint.

[deleted]

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#46

Post by circlefavshape »

cheeseomlit wrote: post #19
snarf21 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a similar thing with a few past employers after I've moved on. "Hey, can you explain this code to the new person?". In some cases, I'd be glad to do a 1 hour call or whatever. They frequently ask me to submit a bill for my time and I always refuse. I don't want to turn into some kind of staff augmentation and be at their beck and call "because they are paying". Way better to think of it as a gift and I get…

That just sounds like you're being taken for a ride

Nope. It's relationship maintenance. I've often done the same - totally worth an hour here or there

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#47

Post by exhilaration »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #22
jyap wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing free labor is devaluing your work. You are free to decline this work.

In my books doing a favour to the old coworker is much more worth than writing an invoice for one hour of “consulting”. They’ll be grateful and owe you a favour.

I totally agree. I'm sure there's a significant number of us that have landed wonderful, well-paid jobs thanks to former co-workers. That's totally worth a few hours of unpaid support for a former employer.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#48

Post by circlefavshape »

jyap wrote: post #17
snarf21 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a similar thing with a few past employers after I've moved on. "Hey, can you explain this code to the new person?". In some cases, I'd be glad to do a 1 hour call or whatever. They frequently ask me to submit a bill for my time and I always refuse. I don't want to turn into some kind of staff augmentation and be at their beck and call "because they are paying". Way better to think of it as a gift and I get…

Doing free labor is devaluing your work. You are free to decline this work.

There's a difference between getting exploited and making a deposit in the favour bank

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#49

Post by andrewxdiamond »

vikingerik wrote: post #33
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #27

> I don't want the administrative workload coming with donations. It's absolutely shameful that over three decades into the internet age, we still don't have zero friction ways of accepting, sending and accounting for money on the internet.

Bitcoin is pretty close to this, right? Anyone can publish a Bitcoin address and accept donations with no friction.

The payment technology is less of an issue. Consumers been able to send small amounts of money all over the world for a decade or two. It’s more about the regulatory framework around taxes and income that make this difficult

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#50

Post by MaxBarraclough »

kokanee wrote: post #42
The_Colonel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second you take any donation, you can't use the excuse of "I'm doing this work for free. Leave me alone if you don't like it" because at that point you aren't doing it for free. No, I don't agree. Communicate clearly that donations are in no way payment for the work being / to be done, does not constitute any preferential treatment / service agreement, and you're good. This setup works for me well, and I have n…

One way to think about this is that people should donate based on value that they've already gained from the project, not additional value that they expect in the future. That said, for an active maintainer who is currently accepting donations (ESPECIALLY recurring donations), making a good-faith effort to deliver on requests from supporters (certainly bugs, and ideally features) is expected. Failure to make that eff…

> for an active maintainer who is currently accepting donations (ESPECIALLY recurring donations), making a good-faith effort to deliver on requests from supporters (certainly bugs, and ideally features) is expected

Even if the maintainer makes it clear and explicit that donations don't grant such expectations? If a donor feels entitled despite clarity from the maintainer, that's on the donor.

If you want to pay the maintainer to work on a feature you want, the proper course should be to just contact the maintainer and work something out, no?

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