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Please remove mitsuhiko/*

github.com

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Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#5

Post by ubernostrum »

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 their ToS, but ultimately that wouldn't do anything except cause them to self-host their code and keep running the "service".

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#7

Post by linohh »

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).

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#8

Post by TomGullen »

If minimum donation was say $5 and it notified you one time when you had $25, I do see the people who this would bother being edge cases.

The tax thing is a good point, but I think it would be entirely reasonable and ethical to simply ignore any donations you got if you didn't want them, and not declare them. Perhaps Tip4Commit could auto forward any unclaimed tips to a charity if they are not claimed in a month.

Email spam is another good point, but if it was simply reduced to a one time email when you had accumulated $25 USD I don't see it as unreasonable.

If they implemented the above I'd probably defend them. Right now not so much perhaps, micro cents of tips and lots of emails are understandably pretty annoying.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#9

Post by ubernostrum »

josu wrote: post #4

Could somebody please provide some context?

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 balance was after the commit. And they insist that once a repository has been added to their system, they do not have the ability to remove it.

This has legal and tax consequences they seem to be blissfully unaware of, and the best they'll offer is to stop sending you an email every time you make a commit.

We (meaning the Django project) went a few rounds with them a while back and ultimately had to resort to threatening spam complaints against their ISP just to get the damn emails turned off. We still have been unable to get removed from the list of projects they "helpfully" collect donations for:

https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/111

The link in this thread is another major developer also attempting to get his repositories removed from their "service", and being stonewalled just as we were.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#10

Post by colanderman »

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 tip4commit's coffers?

(Or is "the project" a mistake and should read "the donor"?)

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