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...
Which concepts in particular are you referring to?
I mean, there truly is quite a lot things that one can disagree with about the "old" world, maybe even somewhat forcefully, in "Gandhi's way" rather than "Kant's way". So when somebody associated with the "new" world behaves stupid he causes much more harm for the supporters of all kind of "cultural revolutions", because makes them look like a bunch of idiots no matter how different from each other their actual beliefs and reasoning may be.
A currency only works if people use it. A good way to support bitcoin is to expand adoption. It seems to me that the creators of tip4commit have blinders on and only view the project through bitcoin colored glasses.
The issue as I see it is that the bitcoin movement mirrors the technology's decentralized nature. There is a general optimism and push towards adoption, but no real methods or direction towards that goal. It's a rather organic, evolving system. Things that have helped adoption have been repeated and things that cause a backlash are squashed and learned from. The latter is what I would say is happening here.
Is there already something like this?
Not true (anymore?). The top 3 comments are now:
- "I think [mitsuhiko] complaint is 120% fair..."
- "It seems like tip4commit is trying to ram a Bitcoin service down peoples throats..."
- "This has nothing to do with Bitcoin at all. It's people being jerks..."
Seriously, what is the big deal with this? The developers are more than able to simply ignore the donations. Anyone who wasted time complaining in that Github thread could have clicked "mark as spam" in a fraction of the time and been done with it.
The Bitcoin community is made up of predominately radical libertarians; I say that with the utmost respect, as I consider myself part of that very group. The culture is very different from that of the Python community - and one of those ways is that it is often acceptable to alienate a portion of your potential userbase.
and that comment agrees with mitsuhiko
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".
The only way there could be tax is if you receive the money, and that can only happen by you deliberately becoming involved.
* 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).
See IRS publication 525, page 2, "constructively received income": http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf
There's some fuzziness and legal room here but the safe thing would be to declare it as income.
Tax? Perhaps not, but the OP was talking about tax and other legal consequences. These can vary wildly from country to country.
My local legislation requires applying for a permit before asking for donations. If a 3rd party would add my projects to this website, I could face criminal charges and the proof of burden would be on me.
Even if they oblige in accepting BTC and just convert it to their preferred currency, they'd be forced to go through the process of signing up and verifying with some sort of exchange. What if they don't want to do business with those institutions, or share their financial details to yet another third-party? Cryptocurrencies will succeed, thankfully, but some people don't want to put their toes in those legal waters yet. They will also have to spend more time administering to local laws and taxes regarding donations, which eats away the time they have for other much more fun things.
It is simply not cool to use a project's name to collect money from its fans without their permission. And without any promise that the money will make it to the intended recipient. And certainly without any indication of what happens to the money that doesn't make it to the recipient.
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.
This is completely wrong.
> If there are purposes that you don't want your project to be used for then forbid it in the license.
This is completely inapplicable.
> 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.
Start your own project.
Isn't this really all there is to say on this subject?
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.
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?
To me it just looks like a badly implemented concept that happens to use Bitcoin. I'm not seeing any Bitcoin exceptionalism here.
----
arsenische - Do I need to learn all the laws of all the countries before publishing anything online or may I just use the common sense and conscience please?
mitsuhiko - To be honest: when it comes to handling money I would assume so. If this website would be dealing with a real world currency you would have a bunch of problems on yourself at this point. Most people would avoid holding funds on their books for an unlimited amount of time.
Don't build software you have to opt-out of and you have a lot less problems on your hand. Right now, this is dangerously close to being sued by someone.
arsenische - That's why this kind of project is hardly possible with traditional money. This project was created during a 48 hour rails rumble competition. The beauty of Bitcoin is that everybody can use it to create something during a weekend.
This is not a commercial project, we don't have resources to hire lawyers and accountants.
---
From this it seems that not only do they think it avoids legal issues, but they do not consider publicly raising bitcoin to be a commercial project that needs lawyers or accountants.
> 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.
(Or is "the project" a mistake and should read "the donor"?)
I can see how "the project" could also be interpreted as tip4commit though and if that's the case, that's pretty lousy.
This interpretation is correct
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 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...)
I'd get a few different signs from random organisations like doctor's without borders, red cross and some other popular ones and then I'll setup on the town square. Big ass signs and maybe a little pamphlet with the details. I'll let everyone know what a fantastic contribution to world peace I'm doing and that I will hand over all their donations as soon as the organisation they donated to gets in touch with me.
I'll just send the organisations a mail informing them that they now have a business relationship with me that I refuse to let them opt-out of. They probably won't mind...
Stop being stupid. Clear your database and implement opt-in.
Could you provide an estimate of the amount of tips actually sent to people with regards to the amount donated ? Could you also provide an estimate of how much funds are being withheld because the tips amount is below the withdrawal threshold ?
I also wonder if tip4commit has looked into whether there is a legal requirement for them to escheat the funds to the state to hold for the individual if the individual doesn't claim it.
No, it is not. We just came with this idea for rails rumble competition, it was pretty spontaneous.
Sorry if "to the project" sounds ambiguous, I meant "to the funded project" (not to tip4commit unless we are talking about tips to https://tip4commit.com/github/tip4commit/tip4commit contributors).
<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>
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.
EDIT: I did https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/147
- 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...
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kzlsh/tip4commit_s...
[2] http://www.itworld.com/article/2693360/cloud-computing/linus...
[4] http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/27bdlo/its_c...
[5] http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20bvau/tip4coin_don...
[0] http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kzlsh/tip4commit_s...
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
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 - 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 and https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/154
or others.
Thanks for reading this and please accept apologies if we offended you (never wanted to).
Providing monetary incentives gamifies the development process, which is not a good thing. It has been shown that providing monetary incentives below a threshold decreases both the quality and quantity of contributions. For more information about this I suggest reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink.
Tip4commit was started for the bitcoin project. I'm a bitcoin developer. We don't like tip4commit. What results in practice is that we end up with ill-formed, poorly thought out, excessively large, trivial, time wasting pull requests to review, which takes time away from beneficial development.
Your service is not helping open source software. It is hurting it. You are paying people to provide distractions which slow down development. Please stop.
The project should be opt-in or shouldn't exist at all.
You have to work with the community rather than against it. If there are maintainers out there that really want this, collaborate with them and grow from there.
I think sticking with opt-out is ok since it will be the difference in having a million projects or 3 projects. But, it means you have to be more considerate of the project owners requests. Thinking that the emails "weren't that bad" is more evidence that you aren't listening very well.
There is a difference between "right" and "convenient for tip4commit". Assuming that no project maintainer wants to be part of tip4commit, should they all be made to opt-out? I'd argue that it is tip4commit that have to make a case for themselves and convince stakeholders of their benefits. Avoiding marketing by choosing defaults that are convenient for you but possibly a nuisance to your stakeholders is a very arrogant and short-sighted position to take.
"We are not affiliated with most of the projects, their owners may be unaware of or actively against using tip4commit."
Opt-in or opt-out would allow everybody using your service to win which is much nicer and more sustainable than lying to donors and developers.
OTOH, still negative infinite points for even arguing when a maintainer comes in and asks to opt out.
> 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
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.
"you can't just start collecting money for me without some kind of deal."
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."
/s
Not all of the time, anyway.
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.
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.
To make matters worse, they have no idea about or no will to learn about foreign laws.
If they listed any of my projects on their website, I, personally would be considered to be participating in illegal activities in my home country. Regardless of whether I would have ever received any money, asking for donations requires a permit ahead of time here. The police could come knocking on my door demanding for an explanation (they'd probably send a letter, though).
It would be extremely unlikely that I would ever get convicted, but I'd have to spend a lot of effort proving my innocence in something I played no part in.
Besides, looking at this project and the number of similar projects (all using cryptocurrencies), it seems like there are no noble intentions behind this. A lot of the funds donated might never get claimed, which means that the intermediate party could usurp the money because no transparency is involved.
Would be interested to hear from someone with a legal background about this.
Deal with the issue some other way. There are unethical people out there who want to make money in crafty ways.
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.
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.
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.
Having a balance on this site, even if it's zero, can have severe implications for the maintainer(s).
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.
As to punishing somebody for actions of others, that is perhaps not typical (although I think some countries actually do punish women for the actions of men, finding examples left as an excercise for the reader). However, you can cause considerable trouble for sending items (say, by international mail) which are legal in your jurisdiction to someone in whose jurisdiction they are not allowed. I'm living in a relatively modern western society, but would still prefer you did not send me cash, drugs or weapons to me with or without my knowledge.
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.
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.
This is probably the tactic that people should use for sites that do email mining and unsolicited emails. Good for them.
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.
I am honestly assuming I'm missing the intricacies here. Could someone explain?
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
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.
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!
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.
I'm honestly a bit surprised you brought that up, as even with the mining fees needed to pay off the Bitcoin network being subsidized by inflation of the money supply (which is apparently good when it's happening now in accordance with an algorithm that was certainly not determined by a centrali party, but won't be good in 20 years because ???), Bitcoin currently requires about $18 per transaction (https://blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction). And the price is only that low because the value of Bitcoin in USD has been dropping steadily for months. If Bitcoin ever became as popular as its proponents hope then the per/tranx price will go up as well (until the entire network is burning through so much electrical power that more miners can't be brought online to compete in the Mine-a-Block lottery at the new, higher Bitcoin price).
Increasing the number of transactions will help, sure, but it's currently limited to ~7 per second, and although there are technical means of increasing that someday, the Bitcoin lead developer has indicated they probably wouldn't do that anyways (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/10/blocksize-economics/) since then how will the poor miners make money?
And in a future where people actually have to bid their transaction fee high enough to be accepted by benevolent miners just to make it in the blockchain, how are the poor of Africa supposed to compete at all? I'm glad you're worried about them, but don't tie their fate to a network which is designed to be horribly inefficient just so people can say that no trusted third parties were ever utilized in a monetary transaction! Especially in this era of increasing centralization in Bitcoin itself; I don't see how those in Africa were their most-capable computing device is a mobile are supposed to compete with the mining pools and ASIC manufacturer/miners, all you'll have done is traded centralized protocols regulated by the public sector with centralized Bitcoin overseen by the profit-seeking private sector.
I'm not an expert on the wide field of crypto-currency but surely there must be something better out there.
I don't think Bitcoin is meant to be your direct mean of payment for coffee. Centralized solutions are cheaper than decentralized ones. In case of Africa for example, you can have many different competing centralized payment systems. But you can fund them with bitcoin, not depending on government printed money. In developed countries, we have CCs and some wanna-be payment systems, but there's very little competition, mostly because it's very expensive to create such company. You cannot start a new VISA in your garage. That's because of how banking system is constructed. But you can start payment system backed by bitcoin in your garage. More competition = lower transaction fees.
And given your background I'm assuming you already know counterarguments to "deflationary store of value by wasting electrical energy" and just used it to make your point.
Like it or not, the pseudonymous (not anonymous) nature of bitcoin will always attract a high level of illegal and unethical activity. Many people will then use those activities, stories, and experiences to paint bitcoin as a whole. The same holds true for Tor, 4chan, reddit, the internet itself, etc.
And what does that have to do with the digital millenium copyright act? Using a name without permission in a way that can confuse consumers is a trademark violation, not a copyright violation.
It's horrible that the DMCA has turned into a generic weapon in legal online warfare.
Clarification: they aren't "opt-out". They aren't "opt", period. Once someone types a project name into their search box, it appears that project and its contributors are in their listing, and that's that. Which is sort of the point of the linked issue, and several other issues asking for removal on behalf of individuals and organizations, none of which have been acted on so far as I'm aware, and several of which have in fact been simply denied.
The same can be said for Bitcoin believers who, in the face tremendous of evidence otherwise (BTC volatility, pleas from respectable folks who study currency and economics, the types of shady characters BTC has attracted), believe it is anything but a flawed implementation of an interesting but possibly bad idea (the blockchain).
From a technological standpoint the incentives of mining and maintaining full network nodes have led to the first implementation of a public shared data store. Neither Bittorrent, Freenet, nor DHTs of any sort satisfy the conditions of being public, having equal access read and write privileges and data that is always available.
You can't have the benefits of the blockchain without the incentives that the units can operate as a currency and be traded for other things of value. That's what keeps everyone validating and making the data publicly available.
The politics are a completely different beast. The anarcho-capitalists and other anti-government proponents who have claimed Bitcoin as their own are living out a fantasy.
I don't think that Bitcoin is going to be the downfall of the nation-state. I think it's going to allow for some very interesting types of software to be made.
Please don't conflate Bitcoin as a technology with the mad ramblings of a bunch of basement dwellers.
Second, Bitcoin has not proven its stability and use the way other currencies have. It doesn't have history behind it yet. There are those of us, myself included, who want nothing to do with it until it is proven absolutely-and without-question legal for use in our countries. Just as some raise the question of whether the US dollar is legal, we have the right to question currencies of unknown and unproven provenance.
Third, association with Bitcoin, for me, considering it's questionable provenance, in any way, shape or form is a hassle I do not want. I don't have the time or the resources to invest in exploring that association, and given that uncertainty, I certainly don't want the possibility of potentially having to defend myself to the tax authorities. There's plenty of tripwires there already to catch me unawares and unlawyered and adding another would just make that situation worse. This is not a risk I would want to take.
You obviously feel differently about the situation and that's your risk to take. But it's not your risk to take on my behalf, without my approval.
Which brings us to tip4commit - they've engineered the whole thing to place themselves at risk (their option) and to place the people they want to support at risk as well (not their choice). Whether or not those potential issues are real or not is not the question yet. The point is that tip4commit has zero right to do or say anything that might place me at risk, whether or not that is real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUNGFZDO8mM
The US Internal Revenue Service has published guidance on the treatment of bitcoin for tax purposes, and New York has passed bitcoin regulation.
Like these rules or not, in most countries bitcoin's legality is completely clear. There are some that consider it illegal, but most _explicitly_ do not.
I personally purchase almost everything with bitcoin including groceries (Amazon Fresh). I do nothing illegal with bitcoin, and I report my income and capital gains. There is no question as to my bitcoin's provenance, I purchase bitcoin from a public exchange, and keep records of these transactions as I would for stock or a large amount currency exchanges.
I do this because I like bitcoin, because it's very convenient to do these types of online transactions, and because there are essentially no transaction fees. I do not hold funds in bitcoin long for these uses (basically cash transactions), but separately I occasionally hold bitcoin for investment speculation (full disclosure I am not currently holding any bitcoin for investment). However that is unrelated to how I typically use bitcoin on a day to day basis, and I do not recommend bitcoin investment to anyone without a very high volatility tolerance (Although unlike stocks it is easy to hold very small amounts of bitcoin for the learning experience).
In other words it is a completely normal monetary/investment instrument, albeit a new and interesting technology. As for scams I have yet to hear of any bitcoin scams that are not simply cash based scams already common in existing currencies, and I see far more news these days about startups, government review, legitimate ideas for new uses and novel innovations enabled by bitcoin's technology than regarding scams.
Technology that relates to money concerns people, and rightly so. Every bitcoin user I've ever met started as a sceptic, both in terms of the technology and the concepts of money. However, these people then learned how the technology works and become more literate about how economics and monitory theory work, and only then did they start to see and accept the innovation.
The politics and morals of people associated with bitcoin are an entirely tangential discussion, and as with any group it is probably not a good idea to generalize.
What percentage of these established corporations "accept" bitcoin through VC-funded startups (which are gambling on the possibility of rising bitcoin value), receiving dollars and never actually holding a bitcoin?
Basically all of them. No established company wants the associated risk to actually hold bitcoin.
I don't see the problem with it. They still accept Bitcoin, no scare quotes needed.
Like it or not, Bitcoin has a PR problem. It needs be liked and trusted in addition to "extremely useful, in principle." For all of the grumbling about central banks, most of us enjoy the benefits of them and trust them at some gut level, even if we don't realize we're doing it.
> 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
It might also fail, in part, because the community failed to realize that a quasi-fiat currency like Bitcoin has to solve the social problems at least as much as it needs to solve the technological ones.
[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Bitcoins_don.27t_solve_any_...
Gold, at a minimum, is backed by the infinite, perpetual demand by people for luxury goods. It's also backed to a lesser extent by industrial uses.
Such demand guarantees some level of value for gold.
Bitcoin is a little scam which justifies itself against the backdrop of a much bigger scam.
Gold is valuable because it takes effort to find, mine and refine. People want to exchange other valuable things for it because it is useful - dentists use it to fill teeth, it is used as an electronics coating since it conducts electricity well, and so forth. People have used gold as a currency for thousands of years, but that is only because it has traits that make it a good commodity, such as durability, portability, uniformity and divisibility.
Bitcoins have no value of this type. Which is why it has fallen from $1160 to $326, and will fall to $0.
Vastly overstated benefits.
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-133-t...
First 20 minutes goes into detail on how useful Bitcoin really is in the developing world.
In short, if you've got access to a data plan and a smartphone you're not going to be unbanked. And if you are unbanked, you're not going to have access to a smartphone and a data plan.
Bitcoin is only actually useful in countries with the infrastructure to support it.
It's crazy to see how much time you, a UK citizen who finds Bitcoin only useful for buying illegal drugs (by your own words), invest in attacking Bitcoin. I thought your limit was Reddit, but now I see you are also spending time on other sites like HN under the same name doing the same thing almost as a full-time job. No wonder some people think there is a paid smear campaign going on against Bitcoin.
And a lot of the early failures of Bitcoin in developing countries were the result of overzealous Bitcoin supporters rushing into a developing country with no prior experience, and then running into some of the inevitable problems (e.g., no reliable electricity).
If it's going to work in these situations, it's going to have to happen from within, not imported by outsiders.
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.
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.
Reality does not yield to arguments of the contrary.
>It's understood that that gold still backs US currency, in a more abstract, unpromised way.
This has nothing to do with value. Gold is almost completely useless - its value is overwhelmingly due to speculation. Dollar is backed by enforceable debts. No better backing is possible. With gold, you're only hoping that somebody will buy it from you, for unclear reason.
Of course, that hasn't stopped people from creating ponzi schemes using bitcoins either.
You might believe it will last your lifetime, and that is semi-reasonable given our short generational lifespans.
But I find it hard to believe in any engineered by human hands system claiming to last "forever."
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.
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)
So, no, "consent" is not what Armin did. In fact, he did the opposite of that.
Whatever the legal specifics might be, I think you'll find that an awful lot of people think it is obnoxious to collect money (or so) on behalf of someone else without having them agree to it first.
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.
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.
I know it's not a good solution, but it's a solution, where you can file license violations wherever they host this project.
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.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kz9x0/please_remov...
1. Unclaimed money is never processed/withdrawn from the donor
2. Opt-in only
That's it.
Also, with this kind of sleazy behavior, the advertising clause in the BSD license suddenly becomes very appealing again.
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.
However, I do think there's an interesting debate on the opt-in/opt-out issue. People are saying that Google itself is an opt-out system, but the "right to be forgotten" seems like a real concern to me.
"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."
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.
Did you see the bit of US tax law helpfully posted elsewhere in the thread?
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
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.
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.
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.
And when asked, they refuse to remove the code and instead spew out asshat logick...
Thanks for fucking with OSS, guys!