Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund • Hacker News Board

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#81

Post by fn-mote » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 1:20 AM UTC

throwaway150 wrote: post #75

nirava wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are very reasonable requirements Sure, but they weren't the original requirements under which he accepted the funds. He accepted the funds assuming GitHub was going to be the mediator. The new requirements require him to disclose significantly more information about himself. Maybe he isn't comfortable doing that? I wouldn't call it unprofessional.

Exactly. I don't understand why so many people think the maintainer has some obligation to accept the funds even when they aren't comfortable doing so. The terms of engagement changed. The decision changed. If they want to forgo the money, they have every right to forego the money.

Possibly there should not be a front page article on the topic, though. With a title alleging worse than the facts substantiate.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#82

Post by dakolli » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

ExpertAdvisor01 wrote: post #49

fossmaintainer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These are perfectly normal requests . These are needed to reduce withholding taxes and claim treaty benefits .

I'm not giving this kind of information over email ever. You better have some secure and compliant platform for me to submit these forms over or you can f off.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#83

Post by dakolli » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 1:25 AM UTC

sreekanth850 wrote: post #20

embedding-shape wrote: post #8

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.

Sounds like its not the maintainers problem :/

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#84

Post by dakolli » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 1:28 AM UTC

nirava wrote: post #73

anpat wrote: post #37

The conversation in comments seem to devolving in weird ways. The OP (and others) have right to opinions but I see bunch of projects having successfully received their grants https://floss.fund/projects/2025 . OpenSSL and Krita being the prominent ones that I recognize. Calling the fund dangerous and unethical when they personally have zero control over regulations seems over the top to me.

I agree. Coming from a neighboring country with similarly strict rules on outgoing dollars, I've had many situations where sending money outside of the country, even for business purposes required an insane amount of paperwork, bureaucracy and sometimes bribery.

Cool, I think its perfectly alright to not accept funds from nations where this type of thing is happening.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#85

Post by carefree-bob » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 1:39 AM UTC

fdefitte wrote: post #43

DiabloD3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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Whoah, everyone here who has a bank account - which I assume is pretty much everyone -- has gone through "standard KYC paperwork", and I've never been asked to send personal financial documents to an email inbox.

I've opened several bank accounts online and do online banking as well as brokerage and other accounts. Financial documents like this should be uploaded via secure portals and directly stored in encrypted databases with controlled access and network segmentation from the rest of the IT infrastructure.

I am editing this comment to say that I don't think what was being requested is malicious or unethical, but I hope you can understand why people would not feel comfortable doing this, even if they are fine with KYC processes in general.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#86

Post by sreekanth850 » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 1:46 AM UTC

sreekanth850 wrote: post #17

DiabloD3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you saying sending money via Wire transfer is unethical? Its a standard way to send money in cross boarder transactions. Please do note that India is highly regulated for financial transaction that go outside the country so, please don't spread something like they are doing it illegally. Zerodha is a well known firm they are open about this funding. 1 Million every year just because they used many oss project. Th…

*border. Late night typos.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#87

Post by slopinthebag » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 2:08 AM UTC

mc007 wrote: post #27

slopinthebag wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

like others have said, try sup abase https://supabase.com/docs/guides/self-hosting/docker i havent tried self hosting but it doesn't look too tricky

setup is easy but you're stuck with one instance. they stripped all multi-tenant features and even the selfhosted version is missing essential features, scaling is off the table though.

It's at least a starting point, since it's just a few different services and a docker-compose you can set up your own scaling. It's not like Pocketbase has multi-tenant or is able to scale OOTB either.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#88

Post by walletdrainer » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 2:27 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #80

reenorap wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but presumably the OP had an existing bank account. You can't wire money into thin air. Assuming OP is a regular person with a regular bank account, then further KYC isn't necessary. KYC for every international wire transfer is in fact not true at all, only for the edge case where a person wants to receive money and he has no existing account to transfer it in.

You can't just transfer money to a person that has no account. That's not an 'edge case' that just isn't how it works unless you want to use WU or something similar and even they have strict KYC requirements for larger sums. If you want to move large amounts of money outside of the regular financial networks and oversight it is possible but (1) it will cost you (2) you will be breaking the law and (3) you may cause o…

> You can't just transfer money to a person that has no account. That's not an 'edge case' that just isn't how it works unless you want to use WU or something similar

Preeetty sure this is something explicitly supported via standard SWIFT messaging.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#89

Post by walletdrainer » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 2:31 AM UTC

dakolli wrote: post #82

ExpertAdvisor01 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are perfectly normal requests . These are needed to reduce withholding taxes and claim treaty benefits .

I'm not giving this kind of information over email ever. You better have some secure and compliant platform for me to submit these forms over or you can f off.

If you’re turning down meaningful amounts of money because you consider this information too sensitive to share, you are a crazy person.

Re: Pocketbase lost its funding from FLOSS fund

#90

Post by protimewaster » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 2:44 AM UTC

dakolli wrote: post #82

ExpertAdvisor01 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are perfectly normal requests . These are needed to reduce withholding taxes and claim treaty benefits .

I'm not giving this kind of information over email ever. You better have some secure and compliant platform for me to submit these forms over or you can f off.

I imagine they're willing to accept them a different way. That email doesn't even specifically ask for the forms to be emailed. It just says to "send them over".

Also, I'd argue there are ways to make it reasonably secure over email. An encrypted attachment with a securely pre-shared key doesn't seem too risky IMO.