Live data from Hacker News

Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

github.com

51–60 of 109 posts

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the required paperwork, I agree with Pocketbase to refuse funding.

Why? I don't see it as particularly onerous. They are simply complying with their country's KYC requirements. I've gone through worse to accept payments from US citizens with a US corporation. KYC/AML is annoying but its pretty unavoidable unless you want to do crypto.

It's not really kyc . It's just standard procedure to claim Double tax treaty benefits.

You can look at the us W8-BEN

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#52

Back in 2024, FLOSS/fund was described like this on HN: > To apply, the project must place a funding.json in their public code repository or at a well-known uri location on their domain [...] That's already 10x more simpler than the 20 page document some of these other orgs have you fill. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41857032 But the author of the issue for Pocketbase writes: > due to some unforeseen regula…

India have a strict process for sending and receiving money from outside as investment. Its mainly to avoid black money i guess.

Given the impact of international terrorism and crime on India, minimising illicit money flow in and out of the country seems an inherently sensible precaution.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

invoice for fund disbursement? are they trying to donate as expenses?

Most US companies take a tax deduction for charitable donations, I don't see why that wouldn't be the same for an Indian firm.

Paying individual OSS contributors without a service agreement is not a charitable donation with regard to taxes. It's not a deductible business expense and typically leads to double taxation.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s fair to conflate the people of India with their government

As a population they're responsible for picking their government.

In the same way an adult is responsable for "picking" the religion they believe in, the one that it was imposed upon them by their parents during their childhood.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#56

These are very reasonable requirements . These are just the requirements to claim treaty benefits . A little bit of research wouldn't hurt. You have to fill out the Form-10f to claim treaty benefits for the reduction of withholding tax on services and royalties . These are the requirements: Tax Residency Certificate (TRC) (= extract from cantonal commercial register) • Non-Permanent Establishment Declaration (No PE D…

[flagged]

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s fair to conflate the people of India with their government

As a population they're responsible for picking their government.

We know democratic systems are barely working in little countries of 350 million people like the USA. Are we really surprised they are imperfect when scaled up to 1.5 billion people?

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#58

I think this submission should be re-titled. From the post, it seems that the author voluntarily declined funding from FLOSS/Fund because they "don't trust them, nor the India government, with processing and storing personal sensitive data"

Here's the actual e-mail the fund sent: Hey ******, I hope you're doing well. I apologise for the long delay on this disbursal from our end, and for not reaching out to you sooner. I am writing to you with an update on GitHub Sponsors, your preferred mode of payment. Unfortunately, we're currently unable to process payments through GitHub Sponsors, Liberapay, OpenCollective, or similar platforms due to regulatory con…

That seems reasonable. It mostly looks necessary to comply with tax and banking laws.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#59
It's always a tough moment for the community when a project as polished as Pocketbase hits a funding wall. It highlights the 'single point of failure' risk in one-person maintainer projects, even when the tech is solid. I hope they find a sustainable path forward that doesn't require compromising on their 'no-build' or 'single file' philosophy.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#60

I think this submission should be re-titled. From the post, it seems that the author voluntarily declined funding from FLOSS/Fund because they "don't trust them, nor the India government, with processing and storing personal sensitive data"

I think it shouldn't. The funding source was dropped by Github, and the terms Pocketbase accepted for funding include being paid through Github by FLOSS Fund. FLOSS Fund refused to follow the regulatory requirements to continue funding projects through Github, and Github dropped them as a funding source. What the Pocketbase maintainer decided was to drop FLOSS Fund after they tried to renegotiate the contract in dang…

> FLOSS Fund refused to follow the regulatory requirements to continue funding projects through Github, and Github dropped them as a funding source.

The email they sent to Pocketbase (posted elsewhere in the thread) makes it sound like the regulatory issue with GitHub funding is still being worked on. The email also doesn't sound like it ruled out the option to wait until the GitHub situation potentially gets sorted out in the future and simply recommended that they use a wire transfer to get things moving.

Post reply on HN