
Please remove mitsuhiko/* - art2
https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/127
======
art2
What is staggering is that one would assume that this service was created with
the aim of helping open source developers, but when the developers ask
personally to make a reasonable change to how the site is functioning, the
owners decline. So the reason the site exists is something different. I don't
think it's fraud. It's probably the weird culture of the (younger) part of the
Bitcoin community, for whom the Bitcoin is more like cultural revolution. It's
hard to rationally explain why liking Bitcoin leads to liking tip4commit's
approach, but surely the Bitcoin revolutionists like to place themselves above
the rest, and don't see themselves as a part of the "old" world (legal,
financial system etc.).

For example, the currently highest-voted comment on /r/bitcoin for the story
[0] says "I disagree with him [mitsuhiko]".

[0]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kz9x0/please_remov...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kz9x0/please_remove_mitsuhiko_this_guy_is_complaining/)

~~~
mbesto
I think it's fair to say that the vocal majority of BitCoiners have a very
naive view of some basic economic concepts.

~~~
wyager
>a very naive view of some basic economic concepts.

Which concepts in particular are you referring to?

~~~
shiven
The failure, nay the pigheaded refusal, to learn from history.

BitCoin is _faux_ money and will likely be recorded as the "Dutch Tulip
Bubble" [0] of our times.

Intentions and wishful thinking alone are not enough to create revolutions.
Crises are invariably required to change such fundamental concepts as _value_
of currency in the public's mind, and it has to happen on a _massive_ scale in
a _tiny_ span of time. BitCoin will be no more than the butt of jokes in
another decade unless it finds it's destiny in a crisis made for it to shine.

[0]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania)

~~~
wyager
You haven't actually mentioned any economic principles; you've just compared
Bitcoin to a historical bubble (of which there were certainly many) without
any evidence supporting this comparison.

>BitCoin is _faux_ money

Could you expand on this? How do you define "faux" money?

------
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".

~~~
randallsquared
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.

~~~
ubernostrum
To take some examples:

* In some countries it is illegal to opt someone into services they didn't ask for.

* In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited emails about services.

* In some countries it is illegal to accept or solicit donations without registering first with tax authorities.

* In some countries it is illegal to suggest a financial relationship between yourself and another person/entity when no such relationship exists.

* In some countries it is illegal to pay out to people without also filing tax documents to track the payment and provide the recipient with records they legally are required to keep.

etc., etc.

Their track record when confronted by people who have issues with some/all of
the above is not encouraging. They appear to me to be putting far too much
faith in "we're doing BitCoin on the internet" as a magic shield against laws,
and they do not appear to have ever talked to anyone who knows even the tax or
service laws of even major countries in which the developers they solicit on
"behalf" of live (evidenced by comments from them that they are too small to
afford lawyers).

~~~
exo762

        > In some countries it is illegal to opt someone into services they didn't ask for.
    

Nope. You are not a part of service unless you accept the tip.

    
    
        > In some countries it is illegal to send unsolicited emails about services.
    

True that. This should probably be fixed.

    
    
        > In some countries it is illegal to accept or solicit donations without registering first with tax authorities.
    

Donation does not exist unless you accept that bitcoin. This is not a problem
of tip4commit. It's a problem between country and it's tax resident.

    
    
        > In some countries it is illegal to suggest a financial relationship between yourself and another person/entity when no such relationship exists.
    

Once again. Relationship does not exist unless you've created it by accepting
that tip. As for suggestion - they are only suggesting that you can create
such relationship.

    
    
        > In some countries it is illegal to pay out to people without also filing tax documents to track the payment and provide the recipient with records they legally are required to keep.
    

PEBCATR - Problem exists between country and tax resident.

If those are really problems - you have problem with your gov and your laws,
not bitcoin or tip4commit.

~~~
mbillie1
> If those are really problems - you have problem with your gov and your laws,
> not bitcoin or tip4commit.

This is a staggeringly arrogant position to take. "Go change your laws, not
this bitcoin service." Really?

------
gerbal
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 is all that different.

There is no reason someone couldn't build a similar project using traditional
currency. But then they would run afoul of the many laws designed to protect
depositors, investors, and the financial system writ-large. As someone remarks
in TFA, holding the amount of currency on ones balance sheets this project
would, if successful, is a terrible idea. It's ripe for fraud and abuse. There
is a reason services like Gittip assist in transferring fund, and act as the
debiter and depositor.

This whole thing is emblematic of the problems with Bitcoin culture, which
seems to think it doesn't have to follow any of the rules. Sorry lads, if
Bitcoin is currency, you have to behave like banks and investment firms if you
are going to act like banks and investment firms.

~~~
eordano
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.

~~~
GhotiFish
Can you explain how they have given that impression? I still don't fully
understand what's going on here, but my first impression (Which seems to be
the issue you have, that they are masquarading or implying that they are
operating on behalf of the developer) is that they let people put bounties on
bugs.

That means they are independent and third party and in no way necessarily
affiliated with the project. I understood that right from the start, but I
only have a 3rd person perspective on this, are the private messages
different?

Could you go into more detail on your position?

~~~
nemetroid
The big text on the landing page says

> Contribute to Open Source

> Donate bitcoins to open source projects or make commits and get tips for it.

The language used is "donate to projects". If you click the "See projects"
button, you get to a page with the header "Supported projects", which suggests
some kind of agreement between the project and Tip4Commit.

If you click a project, you get to a page with text like "Project sponsors",
and even "No sponsors yet. _Be the first to support this project._ ". The
implied "... on Tip4Commit" part is not obvious.

The _only_ thing suggesting that Tip4Commit is not affiliated with the
projects is a low-contrast message at the bottom of each page, which was added
_after_ this blew up.

------
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"?)

~~~
arsenische
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.

E. g. if you donate to reward contributors of
[https://tip4commit.com/github/bitcoin/bitcoin](https://tip4commit.com/github/bitcoin/bitcoin)
and some contributor doesn't specify bitcoin address to claim tips within 30
days then his or her tips will be returned back to bitcoin/bitcoin's balance
(see this logic at
[https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/blob/master/app/mod...](https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/blob/master/app/models/tip.rb#L82))

~~~
aartur
And what happens when a project's owner will never claim tips? Like if he
declared he is not interested in using your site, but people will pay tips
because they see the project's name?

~~~
jacques_chester
It's been a long time since I was a law student. However, as I recall the
rules of trusts in common law countries (assuming this thing is covered by
those rules):

1\. If you take a donation from A on behalf of B, you are now a trustee. That
means you're bound by fiduciary duty, which is a very strict standard of
behaviour[1].

2\. If you can't find B, or if B refuses to accept the donation, you _must
return it to A_. It _cannot_ be repurposed for other beneficiaries.

3\. If you repurpose the funds for yourself, you have breached fiduciary duty
and are legally in deep, deep shit.

The exceptions are, of course, if you explicitly formed a trust with explicit
terms allowing you to select other beneficiaries.

Of course, the laws vary according to jurisdiction. Trusts caselaw has evolved
slightly differently in different common law countries. And legislatures are
typically suspicious of trusts because they get used a lot to reduce tax
burdens, so there tends to be a lot of local tinkering with the trusts laws.

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary)

------
sjs382
Please send donations for the Django project directly to me. Once the
donations accumulate to more than $3000, I will email the Django developers,
requesting that they come get the donations.

<whisper>And if the Django project doesn't come get the donations within 30
days, we don't tell you what happens to the donations. What happens to the
money, if its not claimed, may (or may not) go against the wishes of yourself
or the Django developers (that we're collecting money on behalf of, without
permission). Also, sending these donations exposes the developers to serious
legal consequences.</whisper>

------
roganartu
The tip4commit website is vulnerable to Heartbleed:

[https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#tip4commit.com](https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#tip4commit.com)

Don't sign in or register or you may have more to worry about than undesired
tax liabilities.

EDIT: It's fixed now.

~~~
brunoqc
Did you tell them?

EDIT: I did
[https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/147](https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/147)

~~~
WhoBeI
I'm sure he sent them a notification about their new account on his website on
which, if they create an account, they may or may not find information of
value to them.

------
twa927
A few things I found about tip4commit by searching through reddit:

\- 4 months ago Bitcoin Core was happy to raise 1.8BTC in two days using
tip4commit [0], but today's comment [1] signals they are not happy with
tip4commit, because it encourages submitting large number of small commits

\- an IT World article about 40% donations being unclaimed [2] (1.384BTC)

\- "we discovered a security breach" [3]

\- OpenBazaar, a fork of Dark Market, a market for drugs, encourages to make
donations using tip4commit [4]

\- "Tip4Coin donations look like they are stolen" [5]

Unfortunately it looks like a typical Bitcoin project - naivety of the
authors, in terms of technical and legal matters, plus douchebag attitude
(ignoring others, even if they are owners of things they profit from), plus
shady entities benefiting from them.

[0]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2993ja/good_news_ev...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2993ja/good_news_everyone_since_june_25th_we_have_raised/)

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kzlsh/tip4commit_s...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kzlsh/tip4commit_spammy_as_fuck/clq7fyn)

[2] [http://www.itworld.com/article/2693360/cloud-
computing/linus...](http://www.itworld.com/article/2693360/cloud-
computing/linus-torvalds-and-other-developers-are-leaving-bitcoins-on-the-
table.html)

[3] [http://imgur.com/Qd6EPZ7](http://imgur.com/Qd6EPZ7)

[4]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/27bdlo/its_c...](http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/27bdlo/its_coming_drug_auctions_on_openbazaar/)

[5]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20bvau/tip4coin_don...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20bvau/tip4coin_donations_look_like_they_are_stolen/)

~~~
gnud
There's also the small matter of their fee [0][1], which I do not see
mentioned anywhere on their landing page.

[0]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kzlsh/tip4commit_s...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kzlsh/tip4commit_spammy_as_fuck/clq9cl3)

[1]
[https://tip4commit.com/projects/914/deposits](https://tip4commit.com/projects/914/deposits)

------
arsenische
First, I want to apologize. We have received a lot of negative feedback
suddenly and I can assure you that we take it seriously.

I temporary disabled ALL the email notifications (even though I don't think
they were a real problem) and added a warning that we are not affiliated with
project owners. When my teammate is online he will probably also some of the
other issues.

I see a lot of misinformation about tip4commit and our intentions. I can't
quickly respond to everybody, but I'll try to keep basic answers here:
[https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/wiki/FAQ](https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/wiki/FAQ)

Perhaps some people just misunderstand the project and hate it.

Also I think that it is normal that developers try to understand the
motivation of users and ask questions in order to find a better solution,
please don't take it as offence or reluctance to change.

We are going to resolve every issue or close the project.

Btw, if you think this project shouldn't exist - welcome to
[https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/157](https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/157)
\- that could be the easiest solution for all of us.

If you believe the project can be improved - welcome to leave your feedback on
the desired improvements, such as
[https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/152](https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/152)
and
[https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/154](https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/154)

or others.

Thanks for reading this and please accept apologies if we offended you (never
wanted to).

~~~
sjs382
>> Btw, if you think this project shouldn't exist - welcome to
[https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/157](https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/157)
\- that could be the easiest solution for all of us.

The project should be opt-in or shouldn't exist at all.

~~~
pbreit
Opt-in would kill the project. But I think they could do opt-out if they were
a LOT more sensitive to their constituents.

~~~
sjs382
Why would being opt-in kill the project?

~~~
pbreit
Because instead of having a million projects, you'd have 3. The power of
defaults and opt-out is pretty well-understood to the point I'd call it non-
controversial.

~~~
sjs382
They would have projects from people who are interested in their services, and
interested in having them accept money on the projects behalf. If that number
is 3, so be it.

~~~
pbreit
Which is why you have to be way more aggressive in just about any endeavor.

------
msiemens
Fun fact: mitsuhiko also asked a fork of Tip4Commit to remove his projects.
Now their page states [1]:

> This project has been disabled. It doesn't accept donation and it will not
> distribute tips.

> Reason: Project author request:
> [https://github.com/sigmike/peer4commit/issues/110](https://github.com/sigmike/peer4commit/issues/110)

On the other hand, Tip4Comment has only this notice [2]:

> Project maintainers have decided not to notify new contributors about tips
> and they probably don't like this way of funding.

[1]:
[http://prime4commit.com/projects/129](http://prime4commit.com/projects/129)

[2]:
[https://tip4commit.com/github/mitsuhiko/flask](https://tip4commit.com/github/mitsuhiko/flask)

------
lkrubner
These "funding" schemes keep popping up in different contexts. Journalism
attracted a bunch of these schemes 5 to 10 years ago. Consider what Mike
Krahulik said about Kachingle:

"you can't just start collecting money for me without some kind of deal."

[http://webcomictweets.com/detail/tweet/138771362931163136](http://webcomictweets.com/detail/tweet/138771362931163136)

Kachingle was an extreme case, gathering "donations" for sites like Wikipedia,
Google News, and also small sites like Mike Krahulik's. Using this approach on
Github is just a new variation on an old scam. As someone else said in that
same thread:

"that is the weirdest creepiest business model ever."

~~~
aaronmusk
who says there is a business model behind this?

------
jarcane
Ahh yes, the classic Bitcoiner approach of attempting to drive adoption simply
by giving the damn things to people whether they want them or not.

~~~
randallsquared
How awful!

/s

~~~
lotsofmangos
Kittens are nice, but I don't think they should be automatically posted to
everyone.

Not all of the time, anyway.

------
grkvlt
I really don't understand the hate and anger that seems to be being directed
at the developer, in particular the constant stream of assertions that the
project is a scam, fraudulent, and created with the intent of cashing out with
everyone's donations after pretending to be 'hacked'. It seems like this sort
of accusation is more likely to be a cause for legal action _by_ @arsenische
rather than the flimsy pretexts for legal action _against_ them. The developer
seems to have created this during a hackathon as a fun little project
demonstrating what can be achieved using the GitHub APIs and Bitcoin; I'm
quite impressed at the end result, to be honest. I don't have any real need
for the service, since my employer pays for me to work on open source projects
anyway, but if I was wanting to raise beer money from a side-project I don't
see any reason not to consider it. As for the opt-in mechanism, it looks like
they have resolved most of the issues, and many of the complainants have never
interacted with the project until reading about it here - the number of
complaints about SPAM and assertions of illegality are amazing, all from
people who have never received an email from tip4commit. These days it seems
laughable to complain about unsolicited email - perhaps it was a problem in
the days of USENET when messages cost real money to deliver over expensive
leased lines and dial-up connections, but today with filtering and cheap
bandwidth it makes no sense...

~~~
gnud
The outright refusal to de-list projects makes this seem very suspicious.

It makes it seem like they want to capitalize on well-known oss projects, and
more or less trick people into giving money, when there's no clear entity
behind the service and no clear rules about what happens with "unclaimed"
money.

The two obvious explanations here are "scam" and "thoughtless developers". In
either case, I wouldn't want any project I was associated with, listed on
their page.

------
josu
Could somebody please provide some context?

~~~
ubernostrum
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](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.

~~~
colanderman
I wonder if you could threaten them with a cease & desist over a trademark
violation? (Is there an argument to be made that they are illegally using your
trademark to market their service by association?)

Would be interested to hear from someone with a legal background about this.

~~~
ubernostrum
Like I said, it's something I've investigated.

Best I can tell as a non-attorney acting on advice from others, the way in
which they advertise their services could be easily confused as implying a
financial relationship with organizations or individuals with whom they do not
have a (consenting) financial relationship. Where to go from there is an open
question.

The bigger question, as always with such things, is whether they cause enough
annoyance to be worth lawyering them, and whether playing whack-a-mole --
since they're not the only "service" which does this -- would be a prudent way
to spend time and money.

~~~
jacques_chester
I'd broaden my response to go after services they rely on, starting with
github.

~~~
gnud
Github TOS G10: You must not upload, post, host, or transmit unsolicited
email, SMSs, or "spam" messages.

[https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-
service/#g-...](https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-
service/#g-general-conditions)

------
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.

~~~
ubernostrum
The fact that they have a site on which they solicit donations for specific
projects by name, without the permission of the projects involved, raises
legal concerns both for them and for the projects if someone succumbs to the
reasonable confusion that projects listed on tip4commit have some sort of
fundraising agreement with tip4commit.

I've considered a few times figuring out what it would cost to give them a
good once-over with an attorney, just because it seems historically that
existential threats to their "service" are the only way they ever give even
the minimal response to complaints.

~~~
TomGullen
The idea behind Tip4Commit seems sound to me, it just seems like they've
executed it really poorly which is a shame.

Unfortunately can't seem to access their site, but if you're right and they
are intentionally creating confusion then that is obviously a bad thing.

~~~
ubernostrum
I have no problem with crowdfunded donation services... so long as the
person/project the donations are being collected for has consented to it.

I have a large problem with forcibly opting me and projects I work on into
this, especially since some of those projects have donation mechanisms
already, and an even bigger problem with no way to opt out once in. And I have
a huge problem with the implication that I or those projects have any sort of
relationship with tip4commit other than one of saying "please stop this" and
getting back "no" over and over.

------
brador
My money is on the old Bitcoin play of "we were hacked" once they have a large
enough balance of donations.

~~~
apendleton
As someone else has already pointed out, they don't even have to pretend to
get hacked to get to keep contributors' money. The model of dispensing 1% of
balance per commit guarantees that it's impossible to get all of a project's
contributions back out again.

------
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).

~~~
danbruc
I don't think it can have consequences - how would you justify punishing
somebody for something somebody else did?

~~~
sharpneli
In Finland all kickstarter style fundraisers are explicitly illegal, so is
this. Basically any collection of money requires a special permit that is only
handed to certain charitable causes etc. Otherwise it's paid work and has
totally different rules governing it.

In this case the person would have to prove that they're not involved with
tip4commit. Quite likely the prosecutor would simply say that you're cheating
and are trying to circumvent the law this way. Because how improbable it is
that someone would collect money for you even if you wouldn't want to?

So yeah. In some countries it might become a big problem.

~~~
danbruc
I don't think it would work out this way. Looking at tip4commit would make it
quite clear that you don't have to be involved. And why would you have to
prove that you are not involved instead of having the prosecutor prove the
opposite? No not-guilty-until-proven in Finland?

~~~
sharpneli
Because they have been doing it before.

Recently an exhibition called "Beer and Whiskey expo" was under threat due to
it's name. Mention of Whiskey can be said to be an advertisement of strong
alcohol. So they changed the name and it become just the Beer expo. After that
they were informed that they will be denied permits unless individual bloggers
with no connection to them would also remove mentions of Whiskey in their
posts about the expo.

In the end the individual bloggers removed the mentions to allow the
exhibition to continue. Short description of what happened
[https://thriftyfinn.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/the-grand-
whisk...](https://thriftyfinn.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/the-grand-whiskeygate-
of-finland/) for those who don't speak Finnish.

So yeah. Actions of individuals whom you have no connection with can count
against you here. Especially if the regulators think that you might be
benefiting of them in some way, thus basically trying to cheat the system.

Remember this. Not every country follows the "innocent until proven guilty"
principle.

------
bhc
I believe Flattr does something similar.

They will accept donations on behalf of a YouTube channel (or Instagram,
Soundcloud, etc.) whether the content creator opted in or not and release the
fund when the creator claims his/her donations.

~~~
imrehg
Bountysource[1] seems to be even closer, not sure if that got any such
complaints.

[1]: [https://www.bountysource.com/](https://www.bountysource.com/)

~~~
gerbal
Bounty Source makes it pretty clear the bounties aren't from the project
maintainers, and bounties aren't collected or solicited as if they are from or
for the project maintainers..

------
SchizoDuckie
[https://tip4commit.com/projects/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=...](https://tip4commit.com/projects/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=popcorn&order=balance)

4 project currently listed under popcorn time. Great, he just painted an extra
bulls-eye on their heads beause now they're making money with the project.
Food for lawyers.

------
wheaties
The Django project has done their complaint the right way. They asked to be
removed, voiced the reason why and then have threatened to open a complaint to
the email provider, Mandril, for unsolicited email, i.e. spam. See here:
[https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/111](https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/111)

This is probably the tactic that people should use for sites that do email
mining and unsolicited emails. Good for them.

------
GhotiFish
could someone explain the problem me? I'm not 100% on this service, and I'm
not sure I follow the issues here (are they skimming from donations? Is that
the problem? Most charities do...)

he says tip4commit is profiting off their project, but, it seems like they're
just storing the money till the dev claims it, if he wants it.

Alternatively, what if I were to hypothetically state the following?:

    
    
      I will give the dev who contributes a pull requests that fixes
      this issue: https://github.com/mitsuhiko/flask/issues/1092 
      10 dollars.
    

Have I commited an unfair act? Have I violated mitsuhiko in some way? Is the
dev that claims this 10 dollars immoral? is mitsuhiko harmed?

I am honestly assuming I'm missing the intricacies here. Could someone
explain?

~~~
DanBC
Some countries have strict rules about soliciting or collecting donations.

People in those countries want to avoid the small possibility of legal
trouble. They want to opt out of the project.

The project refuses to allow any form of optout.

This means that some people in some countries may have to sepnd time (and this
money) talking to police and explaining what's going on.

Dumping this time + cost burden on someone else when they have specifically
asked to avoid it is sub-optimal.

As an example of a group who were interviewed by police and who had to explain
that their local group was not soliciting donations - the US parent group was:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8543640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8543640)

There was another problem which has since been fixed. The project would send
out an email when a tip had been donated, even when it was a tiny donation and
even if the receiver was not able to withdraw that tip. This is unsolicited
and probably bulk and thus meets the treshold for spam.

Finally it's not really clear what happens to the money. Say you're involved
in $OpenSourceProject. Now imagine I donate a few US cents (but in bitcoin) to
GhotiFish for a commit you made to $OpenSourceProject and you never collect
it. This thread uas clarified that the money goes into a pool for
$OpenSourceProject. But what if they never collect it?

Tl:dr get permission from people before you use their name or project-names in
your stuff.

~~~
GhotiFish
Well all that is fair, the devil definitely is in the details here.

I can empathise with the reasons to avoid opt out for them, if they view
themselves as a transparent third party, then their perspective would be the
same as the suggestion I put forward. That people are putting their money
towards a project by their own volition. From that perspective, there's
nothing the owner can do about it but ask people not to do it.

My post was made before I had gone through the bulk of text in this
discussion, so I can see the issue there.

I have to agree with all your points, but your conclusion and ours are
different.

Despite the complications, I don't see why a projects head have an innate
right to prevent donations to that projects developers. I keep seeing this
sentiment come up over and over. I do disagree with that.

Thanks for summarizing the issues!

------
shangxiao
I wanted to tell these guys that they remind me of the infuriating Comcast guy
who refused to disconnect the customer's account, until I saw that somebody
else felt the same way and had already told them.

------
jnbiche
These kinds of episodes are making me increasingly depressed.

On one hand, I'm incredibly disappointed in the ethics and morality of some of
the people who have latched on to Bitcoin. And sadly, I'd have to include
tip4commit in that group, particularly since they are "opt-out" and yet have
been spamming people after each commit [ubernostrum points out below that they
aren't even "opt-out", since they're not honoring opt out requests]. At best,
it's poorly thought out. They may have good intentions, but they've
implemented their intentions in a very sketchy manner. Completely
unacceptable, and I understand people's anger. Bitcoin has attracted more than
it's fair share of assholes, and I understand the frustration people have
toward such people and companies.

On the other hand, I'm even more saddened by the irrational hatred so many
developers have for Bitcoin, who refuse to acknowledge that not everyone who
is interested in Bitcoin is a scammer or lunatic. I have met some incredibly
honest, generous, and kind individuals in the Bitcoin community. And the
Bitcoin project holds such promise for the financial world, if it's not first
destroyed by scammers, regulators, and close-minded developers.

As just one example of what drew me to Bitcoin, Bitcoin holds (or used to
hold) such tremendous promise for the developing world, and to people who are
shut out of traditional banking. It's bitterly disappointing to me that so
many people are intent on destroying Bitcoin because its implications are
perceived to threaten their political beliefs, or because of some kind of
jealousy toward the imagined wealth of earlier adopters. The contempt around
here is palpable, and it's directed toward _anyone_ associated with Bitcoin.

The emotions here are so intense that we have HNers pulling out the DMCA,
which is so hypocritical coming from certain people that I am left speechless.

Can we please bear in mind that Bitcoin has many, many ethical, kind, honest
developers and users, and that not everyone should be painted with this brush
of contempt that some of you wield so recklessly. Bitcoin has the misfortune
to have experienced an huge gain in price last winter, which drew in an
inordinate number of scammers, opportunists, and speculators. We, the
developers and users of Bitcoin, are not to blame for these types of dishonest
people. Very often, we are their victims.

If Bitcoin does fail, a large part of the blame will be one the shoulders of
so many software and IT people who make a flash decision that Bitcoin was
"tulips" or a "ponzi scheme", and who refused to change their minds in the
face of evidence otherwise (like scores of established corporations choosing
to accept Bitcoin).

I actually worry now that some of my Bitcoin open source contributions in my
real name will be held against me now. All my hard work building a great
Github repo is going to be discounted because people see contributions to one
or two Bitcoin projects in my "contributed to" Github section.

The whole situation makes me sad beyond belief.

~~~
Ologn
> If Bitcoin does fail, a large part of the blame will be one the shoulders of
> so many software and IT people who make a flash decision that Bitcoin was
> "tulips" or a "ponzi scheme"

Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. That people think they have any value shows they
have a fundamental misunderstanding of value. This group might include a lot
of people, but the number of people who owned over-priced houses in 2008, or
dot-com stock in 2000 was large as well.

HN'ers talk about how they are sober, logical, rational people who can see
business (and engineering) opportunities that "traditional" business and
finance can not. So Bitcoin is a good lesson in this regard, since the snake
oil seems to have infected Silicon Valley like some west coast est cult, with
lots of major VC's singing the praises of this scam they are running. Even
people not interested in Bitcoins should pay attention to this aspect of
Bitcoins, as familiarity with these scams is useful. You can see major VC's
lying about the future of Bitcoin, the cluelessness of so many people here and
so forth. Aside from understanding scams, you'll understand that there are
some people, such as myself and others talking about tulips and ponzi etc.,
who understand the concept of value. The people hyping the Bitcoins, which
will inevitably go to $0, do not understand value, but despite this, nothing
will really change. The majority will still listen to the big VC and angel con
artists peddling this type of scam, those of us who were prescient about it
will be ignored - though inevitably proved wrong on Bitcoin, the VC scammers
will still be considered "right". This will be one of the more instructive
lessons, not that of Bitcoin. One of these more instructive lessons is that
the VCs are fundamentally wrong about why a currency or commodity has value.
We understand value, they don't, but that knowledge only helps us avoid scams
like Bitcoin for now. They hold the microphone and those of us who are right
will be marginalized even when proved correct. It's kind of like how Richard
Dawkins, who is correct about reality, logic, Christianity and so forth, is a
marginalized figure, because preachers shaking down their congregations for
tithes and money are who have the microphone and the power. But in this case
we're not talking about delusions infecting uneducated, rural yokels, we're
talking about delusions that infect the educated, well-to-do denizens of the
Bay Area. Bitcoin is down 7% today, and way down from last November, when
Bitcoin was trading at $1160, and no matter how much the bagholders on HN
downvote my karma, nothing will stop Bitcoin's drop from that $1160 peak last
November to today's $326, to it's inevitable proper price of $0.

I've talked about WHY Bitcoin is worthless in previous posts, but to reiterate
- the question is WHY is Bitcoin valuable? Ask that simple question before
buying a Bitcoin, or spending thousands to get an ASIC on backorder (the major
Bitcoin ASIC sellers, Butterfly Labs, were raided by the feds recently due to
fraud). There is no answer. "It's valuable because people are buying it right
now" is not a real answer. You could say that about new Sacramento real estate
developments in 2008, or Pets.com stock in 2000. It's a tautological argument
- if people are buying it for $326, according to that theory, it's worth that
because people will pay that, if it drops to $2, it's worth that because
people will only pay that. It's a tautological argument.

Commodities have a real value. Real, long-term currencies are just commodities
with traits that make them good currencies. The traits are things like
durability, portability, uniformity and divisibility. People have been trading
for thousands of years, so what has been a currency for thousands of years?
Gold has been one of the most popular - not because it is different than other
commodities, other than those mentioned traits which make it a good currency.
All of the precious metals make decent currencies.

Half a century ago US currency was paper with no inherent value, but with the
promise that one could trade it for gold that was held in Fort Knox and other
places. So through all these thousands of years, currency was tied to a real
commodity, a precious metal. Bitcoin does not have such a link.

Of course in 1971, Nixon broke the link between Federal Reserve notes and
gold. Other major currencies followed suit. Some Bitcoin advocates point to
that event and say Bitcoin can float on thin air as well. Why that is not so
is too much to go into in an HN comment. Suffice it to say, the US government
holds over 10,000 tons of gold in Fort Knox and other places. If US currency
ever began to collapse, a simple announcement that dollars were convertible to
that gold at a certain price would stabilize the currency. Why does the US
government spend all that money to hold 10,000 tons of gold? It's understood
that that gold still backs US currency, in a more abstract, unpromised way.
There are no 10,000 tons of gold backing Bitcoin.

~~~
williamcotton
It is valuable because it is a shared public data store with equal access read
and write privileges. Data stored in it is available, partitionable and
eventually consistent. It works due to the economic incentives of being
rewarded for validating transactions.

Prior to Bitcoin there were no shared public data stores that satisfied these
requirements. Bittorrent and Freenet are not guaranteed to have data
availability. That is, you can't always get what you stored. DHTs only work
when they are centralized and are susceptible to a number of different attacks
when operated with general public access.

The only way to interact with this data store is by being in control of
Bitcoin. That is what gives value to the units of account.

~~~
Ologn
I understand what you're saying. The only problem is _what_ data is in that
decentralized, available, secure data store. The only data allowed in is self-
referencing data. Most people don't care about the Bitcoin data store. If I
could access, say, Gutenberg.org books in that data store, or something of
that nature, I and others would find more value in it.

On the other end of that, processing, not data, there are distributed
processing projects out there finding the optimal golomb rulers, looking for
pulsars, how protein folds etc. There could be value in a distributed project
processing these and other projects. All of Bitcoin processing is self-
referential though, it does not allow for this potentially more valuable
processing.

What you're describing would be valuable, but not if the only data storable is
self-referencing. People don't buy 1 terabyte disk drives that already store
Bitcoin blockchain history. They pay for hard drives because they will store
the information they want to store and retrieve on them.

~~~
williamcotton
[http://cryptograffiti.info/](http://cryptograffiti.info/)

[http://coinsecrets.org/](http://coinsecrets.org/)

[https://www.coinprism.info/address/1BvvRfz4XnxSWJ524TusetYKr...](https://www.coinprism.info/address/1BvvRfz4XnxSWJ524TusetYKrtZnAbgV3r)

[https://blockchain.info/new-transactions](https://blockchain.info/new-
transactions)

I personally believe that there is intrinsic value in just the self-
referential nature of Bitcoin transactions but what's important to realize is
that the transactional nature of Bitcoin is what allows for the entire system
to work, regardless of what is built on top of it.

A basic transaction of "A sent X to Y" might not be as valuable as a poem, but
it still has some level of value.

~~~
Ologn
Interesting.

If digital currencies focused more on this type of thing, they might actually
stay around for a while longer. This is something I can see the value and
usefulness of. A Bitcoin competitor focused around things like this, and
perhaps allowing people to pay for non-blockchain mass processing power, might
actually be viable in the long term. Because it would be actually useful and
valuable.

~~~
GhotiFish
>If digital currencies focused more on this type of thing, they might actually
stay around for a while longer. This is something I can see the value and
usefulness of.

Bitcoins protocol was _SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED_ to allow these kinds of
services.
[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script)

It is exactly what you say it should be.

------
mjuchli
I started a project called Issue-Bidder ([https://issue-
bidder.com/](https://issue-bidder.com/)) with the same concept before I even
knew that bountysource (and meanwhile also tip4commit) existed. I do not
collect any repositories from Github but rather let the users manually submit
a repo to Issue-Bidder. And at this point I think there is only one reason why
bountysource does the opposite: For marketing reason – or better let's say
this straight-out: the intention to make money. Guess what, the opensource
community (speaking as a set of all specific communities) is a high potential
and open market. Everybody is able to move mountains if you're ruthless
enough. Let's just take this post on reddit as an example:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/2dsvme/someone_stol...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/2dsvme/someone_stole_my_gpl_code_from_github_showing_it/)
and I'm sure tons of other example cases exist out there. In my opinion we can
compare bountysource and all the other vultures out there with the financial
brokers back in the 90' (why did I even set a filter to the 90' anyways?).
Should we now all hate them? Or are we now just hating around because we are
naive and didn't restrict all our repos and do believe in the positive aspects
of this high potential market called opensource?

------
jedanbik
This is gross to read because it's really about consent.

~~~
teamhappy
I disagree. He explicitly consented to everybody doing whatever they want with
the software.

I just don't think it's fair to allow people to do one thing and then make
them feel bad about it once they do it.

\---

Let me clarify a couple of things here so I don't have to write short replies
to all of you.

Let's start with the 3-clause-BSD license. It states that you aren't allowed
to use the names of the contributors to endorse derived works. They don't do
any of that so this is not an issue.

Somebody brought up trademarks. If there's a trademark issue the legal
situation should be clear and this issue should resolve itself in no time.
Nobody likes lawsuits. I don't see how they violate any trademarks though.

Somebody else brought up handles. This has always been an issue. It seems to
boil down to if you like a project, it's okay for them to use somebody else's
handle, if you don't, it's unacceptable. I don't think it's a good idea to
build a moral argument on top of that. I'm pretty sure I'm guilty of this
myself.

The money/tax thing is very interesting. I really wouldn't know, but I don't
think you can collect money on someone else's behalf. As in, it only becomes a
tax issue/your money once you actually accept the money.

If you're one of the people who think "GitHub should just shut these scumbags
down" we might as well start shutting down political parties, newspapers and
TV station we don't like. I don't want to live in a world like that.

What upsets me the most is the fact that it becomes harder and harder to have
a discussion about topics like this one. What's the point in having a
discussion platform if everybody is expected to agree anyway? And even worse,
if you don't immediately state that you don't support someone/something you're
guilty by association somehow.

I'm sad now. Please continue.

~~~
maxerickson
Your focus on the software and license (which continues in your clarification)
is more a demonstration that you haven't understood the situation than it is
disagreement with anything being discussed. The complaint is _Please remove my
repositories from the website and do not add a way to add them again. I do not
value third party websites gameifying my projects_ , but where it says
"repositories", it is not talking about copies of the software, it is talking
about listings on tip4commit.com that look(ed!) like they were collecting
donations for mitsuhiko/*.

Maybe my other replies will make more sense in that light.

(the (ed!) is because they at least have stuck up a disclaimer saying the
projects don't like the funding)

~~~
teamhappy
The reason I felt the need to explain the legal situation is that some people
seem to think there's an objective right/wrong here and that's just not true.

Furthermore, I believe the reaction to this issue is way over the top. The
tip4commit people seem very well intentioned in that they created a website
for people to donate to open source projects. They might be stubborn and
adding the disclaimer might have taken a couple of days to long, but I don't
see how any of this justifies so much hate.

~~~
rdtsc
> The tip4commit people seem very well intentioned

Yeah, it seems after their response to the issue their intentions became a bit
more clear, and they are as good you claim.

~~~
teamhappy
> [...] it seems after their response to the issue their intentions became a
> bit more clear [...]

Care to share any new insights you've gained?

~~~
rdtsc
The insight that they were not well intentioned for the projects they
supposedly wanted to help. This was a project which explicitly asked them to
fix a problem. Not any problem, it was a very serious one. They refused.

------
pistle
You know what really helps open source developers? Annoying them until they
say f-it. Not only is os its own sort of challenge, but then you get a ghetto
bitcoin angle going on it... and these tips sort of amount to shit. Big
contributors (likely alternatively funded well beyond the tips) don't see much
and small contributors get fuck all. And that unclaimed currency goes back to
the "project?" Stop.

------
CHY872
Here's an interesting one. They only email contributors when they have over
0.005 BTC sitting around. So any contributor who over their lifetime is
donated less than 0.005 BTC is never told that the money has been given to
them.

So we can reasonably expect that almost all the money put into this service
will end up sitting around and not going to the people it's supposed to help.

------
hayd
"each new commit receives 1% of available balance"

So if you put a dollar in the account, even after 100 commits there's still 36
cents leftover (assuming every commit is "claimed"). Which is to say, by
construction most of this money is going to remained unclaimed.

~~~
GhotiFish
that's true, seems like there should be a way for funds to be exhausted at
some point, and it could lead to a bit of spam.

------
nakovet
Maybe it's time for a LICENSE addendum? "Unless the services stated here, no
money should be collect in the project behalf. "?

I know it's not a good solution, but it's a solution, where you can file
license violations wherever they host this project.

~~~
aidenn0
IANAL but I don't think that would work unless tip4commit is using your
software; otherwise they don't have to agree to your license.

~~~
nakovet
Good catch, all they are using is the project name. =( I guess a license
addendum would have no effect.

------
ayrx
Even ignoring all the legal implications, it's pretty damn rude to reach out
to people contributing to open source projects on their own free time without
asking for anything in return and offer them a few measly dollars for hours of
work.

~~~
jschwartzi
In fact, this communicates entirely the wrong information about the value of
their work. If I were looking to encourage people to work on open-source
projects, I certainly wouldn't try to entice them with a pittance too small to
even buy a pack of gum.

~~~
ayrx
Exactly. As an active open source contributor I'll be very insulted if someone
offers this to me without me opting in.

If I want money I look for jobs or clients. Literally any other job in the
world will pay more than this ever will. I'm not doing open source for the
money.

------
untilHellbanned
Bitcoin subreddit thread:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kz9x0/please_remov...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kz9x0/please_remove_mitsuhiko_this_guy_is_complaining/)

------
BuckRogers
1 of 2 fixes needed here.

1\. Unclaimed money is never processed/withdrawn from the donor

2\. Opt-in only

That's it.

------
DonHopkins
Oh, no: now all we need is for ISIS to start using tip4commit to contribute to
open source projects, and we'll be living in a South Park episode.

------
drivingmenuts
In theory, I can association anyone with tip4commit just by searching for
their project by name/project, correct?

------
sfk
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.

~~~
Cakez0r
Giving money to open source developers. How parasitical.

~~~
dlisboa
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.

~~~
cookiecaper
_Lots_ of people want to make money from their open-source projects, directly
or indirectly.

~~~
dlisboa
This project is only directly, which violates indirectly. Lots of people don't
want to be paid _directly_ for their open-source projects.

Mainly because that's precisely what open-source isn't: it's not distribution
of software services. There isn't a consumer-producer relationship.

Indirectly is what works great: someone with a vested interest pays an open
source developer for his expertise to make sure the open source project
continues on. The developer is backed by the full extent of labor laws,
welfare services and all other work-related niceties her or his country might
have. Or the developer provides a service with clear boundaries which other
people pay for, helping provide income for the project's developer and
possibly giving it guidance.

Directly there's none of that. There's only people giving money to someone who
now has to bear the full legality of it, unaware of the purpose or source of
said money. If they don't want it, don't force it on them. Not to mention most
projects which _want_ money already have a system set up for it, a system
which they explicitly decided was the best for them.

There are loads of other ways to support open source developers other than
forcibly putting them in a situation in which they need to hire a lawyer.

------
Tehnix
I don't really see a problem with this, and feel it's been blown waaaaaaay
bigger than it should have been.

They even included "We are not affiliated with most of the projects, their
owners might not endorse use of tip4commit." at the bottom of their frontpage.

------
naringas
in a nutshell they're refusing to implement a blacklisting mechanism and being
stubborn about it.

~~~
cookiecaper
Since the project is open source itself, I wonder if they'd accept a pull
request that implemented a blacklist.

~~~
ahome1
That would be an interesting way to deal with the developer's response that he
add one himself:

"Perhaps there should be a "black list" that prevents certain projects from
being added. But I am not yet sure if we should develop this feature since
motivation is not clear to me."

------
TallboyOne
Wow, fuck that guy.

------
Dewie
I received a tip from tip4commit for a merged pull request to some github
repository. The tip was too small to "cash out" on though, and I think I might
have needed 40 or more tips like that in order to get a sum that was
redeemable.

------
coldtea
The best thing would be to get GitHub to close this scumbags down.

------
coldtea
One useful exercize would be to read the "right to forget" thing within the
frame of this exchange.

------
scotty79
So basically main point of opposition boil down to:

1\. "Don't use my project name to collect money for me!"

Why not use your project name? Did you trademarked it? If not, then it's just
public information and you can't control how anyone chooses to use it.

No one is collecting money for you. The guy just collects money and promises
to give it to you if you ask. Until you ask it's his money.

2\. "Don't spam!"

Well, spamming is certainly in bad taste. I guess he just wanted to make sure
people know that he will give them some money if they ask. Probably mistake on
his part.

3\. "There might be some laws against some of those things in some countries."

So? There are countries that have laws that say that being gay is illegal.
Nobody cares about all the laws.

I think it illustrates that you should "do NOT as you would be done by"
because you might have different tastes. Personally I'm all for free pennies
and all possible schemes of bringing money to developers so they can do what
they wan't instead of do what others tell them to do.

~~~
DanBC
> No one is collecting money for you. The guy just collects money and promises
> to give it to you if you ask. Until you ask it's his money.

Did you see the bit of US tax law helpfully posted elsewhere in the thread?

~~~
scotty79
I just did. What a bizarre construct. Totally unenforceable. You'll get 'civil
forfeiture'-d 50 times at random before IRS will charge you with that and
wins. Besides it's not uncashed check. It's verbal (or even virtual) promise
made by person in another country. If Nigerian prince offers you 500000$ you
just need to claim do you have to pay taxes on that?

~~~
meepmorp
> I just did. What a bizarre construct. Totally unenforceable. Y

Oh, well thank god for that.

Whoever might have legal issues with this can just tell the relevant
authorities in their country that scotty79 on HN says it's bizarre and totally
unenforceable, and that'll shut them right up, won't it.

And, also, hey who gives a shit if the people involved in the various projects
want their project associated with this. If there's no legal means to prevent
it, then it's 100% ok because there's no such thing as just respecting the
wishes of the people involved and being a decent person. After all, those
people for put their code out there in public, so they have it coming and fuck
them if they don't like it.

Can you seriously not see why people have a problem with this? And why it'd be
good for the folks running the site to not automatically include whoever they
please in their scheme, and to allow projects to remove themselves if asked?

~~~
scotty79
> Whoever might have legal issues with this can just tell the relevant
> authorities in their country that scotty79 on HN says it's bizarre and
> totally unenforceable, and that'll shut them right up, won't it.

Yup. Btw that someone won't care because that will be the day when that
someone will get struck by lightning three times, once after each meal, so
he'll have much more to worry about.

------
aaronmusk
It's a bit sad and annoying to see educated people with uneducated opinions on
something that is as clear as my command line. The guys are not impersonating
anyone nor taking any money from anyone. Google is opt-out tool and I don't
see anyone complaining. There is absolutely nothing wrong with people bringing
extra attention to someone's project and if contributors are going to make
money in the process, that's epic.

Yes, they probably should have emailed contributors less often but they've
fixed it. Instead of complaining, come up with ideas to make it better... in
the end, that's what this kind of community should be all about.

BTW, get your ego's checked... seems like it's a bit inflated... and if you
are going to sue anyone, think about your federal income tax... because that
money is actually stolen from you :P

~~~
DanBC
> Google is opt-out tool and I don't see anyone complaining.

I see plenty of people complaining. That's why "Right to be forgotten" has so
much traffic in EU.

> Instead of complaining, come up with ideas to make it better

People have suggested ways to make it better. The project has ignored them.

------
eof
I'm really, really surprised and confused by what seems to be the overall
sentiment here.

This tipping project was born of a hackathon combining cryptocurrency (cool)
and supporting open source projects. Awesome!

Then when people started getting tipped tiny amounts it generated spam...
annoying, but it was fixed.

It's a bit outrageous to claim that emailing someone after they have received
_free money_ (over some threshold) to invite them to accept it is going over
the line.

Claims about taxes, etc.. are laughable. HOW DARE YOU GIVE ME FREE MONEY AND
ALLOW ME TO DECLINE IT. Give me a break.

Overall the tone of alexanderz is extremely reasonable. It is not clear to me
why the equivalent of a social-site invite being emailed on behalf of some
user is suddenly worth getting angry and talking about international spam law.
Especially when the exact same opt-out functionality exists. Click one button
and never seen another email.. what's the deal here.

~~~
maxerickson
I guess the aspect you aren't addressing is that people feel like a listing on
the site creates an association between the site and their project (quoting
from the bug report _I do not want to be associated with this kind of thing._
).

You can disagree about whether the listing implies an association and disagree
that such an association is a bad thing, but it should be clear enough that
there are people who do think it creates an association and that they do not
want that appearance.

~~~
eof
fair. It seems 'opt-out' is fine to me though and here is why: I want to
contribute to some persons tiny little 4-stars github project because it saved
my ass.. it is a bit audacious for long-tail repos to be signing up to accept
tips; but sometimes my long-tail tip will cross her long-tail repo.

Even more, what does mitsuhiko care if _other people_ are getting money for
contributions to his repos. If mitsuhiko is getting spam or seeing stuff in
his issue queue despite opting out; that is a serious breach of ettiquite.

It doesn't seem to me this is the case though.. it's like he is angry that
other people are getting emails?

~~~
maxerickson
I don't think he is angry, I just think he isn't comfortable having his
projects listed on sites like this. Read his comments on the bug; they are
polite, they explain his perspective, they ask for a specific action, they
don't contain insults.

In your scenario, if you actually wanted to tip a meaningful amount, I think
it wouldn't be a big deal to simply contact the project directly and see how
they wanted to handle it. If you are talking about software users keeping
$0.50 tips instead of the projects collecting them, I think that argument is
sort of neutral to the opt-in/opt-out question (if a project thinks the
combined small tips are worth dealing with, they will likely opt in).

