This is problematic in many different ways. Tax reasons are one. Noncompete agreements with exempts for non commercial / open source work another. Having a balance on this site, even if it's zero, can have severe implications for the maintainer(s).
I don't think it can have consequences - how would you justify punishing somebody for something somebody else did?
In the same way that a company can be 'punished' for not defending a brand name: silence, in the face of knowledge of actions, is taken as tacit acceptance of those actions.
I'm confused to why this project is a good idea. It seems like they are collecting funds on behalf of a third party without that third parties consent and then distributing those funds, again without third parties knowledge or consent. As much as the project seems to have good intentions, insisting that It's BitCoin, BitCoin is different doesn't mean your product is actually exempt from rules and law. Or that Bitcoin…
I think that the project is a bad idea because you can't impersonate me and take donations in my name without my consent, no matter which currency is being used.
I do not normally rant, but tip4commit and its ilk are some of the most infuriating people in the world to deal with, since they're opting other people's projects into something that has all sorts of legal/taxation consequences and think that "we have no way to remove you once you get opted in" is an acceptable answer. I'd push complaints further up to GitHub, since I'm sure something in the way this works violates t…
How can there be taxation consequences unless you act to set up a bitcoin address and accept the offered tip? If you've done all that, I think it's clear you know what you're doing. If you don't do that, then the money (apparently?) returns to the project you committed to, from whence it came. The only way there could be tax is if you receive the money, and that can only happen by you deliberately becoming involved.
Consider this: you are in a high-tax country and have some incoming lucrative income. Instead of receiving that income and paying the tax, the company sends you an email saying: Here's a $100,000, come get if you want, but you don't have to! It's a tip! It'll get donated to MSF in a few years. Wink, wink. You put in your income for the year as $0 (not having accepted this tip), and leave for the Seyschelles, where suddenly you come upon this email (you didn't check your Spam folder until then) and claim your now tax-free $100,000.
tip4commit is one of a number of services which, without asking for permission or notifying you, opt your projects into a BitCoin-based crowdfunding system. Even if your project doesn't want it, even if your project has its own donation/support system you'd like to send people to. Historically they spammed committers of force-opted-in repositories with an email on every commit to tell them what their new BTC donation…
Wow, that was infuriating to read. They don't get it, they don't want to get it and they aren't listening.
Upton Sinclair said it best: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
From the FAQ: > What happens to unclaimed tips (if recipient doesn't sign in and specify his/her bitcoin address)? Funds that are not claimed during 30 days get returned back to the project. Presumably "the project" in the answer refers to tip4commit? If so, isn't tip4commit committing fraud by advertising that tips go to the intended recipient, when in fact, if the recipient does not participate, they go into tip4co…
When I said "returned to the project's balance" - I meant "returned to the funded project's balance" so that other contributors to that project could receive them.
Sorry if sounds ambiguous, English is not my native language.
I do not normally rant, but tip4commit and its ilk are some of the most infuriating people in the world to deal with, since they're opting other people's projects into something that has all sorts of legal/taxation consequences and think that "we have no way to remove you once you get opted in" is an acceptable answer. I'd push complaints further up to GitHub, since I'm sure something in the way this works violates t…
Those projects are in the public domain. If there are purposes that you don't want your project to be used for then forbid it in the license. When you put your contact information in the public domain and then complain about being notified when somebody has given you money, I feel like you're complaining just for the sake of complaining. Set up filter rules or don't put your contact information on the internet.
If I was denied the chance to receive a donation for a contribution I made to an open source project essentially because the "project owner" doesn't agree then I'd be very annoyed.
If open source parasites like tip4commit don't learn, the next logical step is to trademark projects and send DMCA notices without wasting any further time. Also, with this kind of sleazy behavior, the advertising clause in the BSD license suddenly becomes very appealing again.
Giving money to open source developers. How parasitical.
Not all open source developers want money for their open source software. You think collecting money using someone else's hard work isn't a bad thing. A hard work that the person explicitly went to the trouble of making free and abstained from any income derived solely from it.
From the FAQ: > What happens to unclaimed tips (if recipient doesn't sign in and specify his/her bitcoin address)? Funds that are not claimed during 30 days get returned back to the project. Presumably "the project" in the answer refers to tip4commit? If so, isn't tip4commit committing fraud by advertising that tips go to the intended recipient, when in fact, if the recipient does not participate, they go into tip4co…
I assumed "the project" meant that the tip goes back into a general pool still dedicated to the particular project the tip was originally designated for. Then these funds would be available for redistribution when new commits are made to the project. I can see how "the project" could also be interpreted as tip4commit though and if that's the case, that's pretty lousy.
> I assumed "the project" meant that the tip goes back into a general pool still dedicated to the particular project the tip was originally designated for.