Xfce project and financial contributions

Mon Apr 26 01:41:10 CEST 2021

 > Do we have a policy on how to use the money we receive? What has been
 > done with funds collected by BountySource, for instance?

To the best of my knowledge, other than claimed bounty bugs, no money 
has been paid out from Bountysource contributions to Xfce devs.

There is currently no policy for paying out as no money has been paid 
out in the last 10-12 years, to my knowledge.

 From what I can gather, from my personal perspective, the devs haven't 
even bought a beer using Xfce funds. Judge that as you will.

I am not the Xfce accountant, so I cannot speak in any more detail than 
that.

Regards,

kev

On 4/25/21 12:53 AM, Jarno Suni wrote:
> Can you tell how big fees do each payment method of it have?  (cards,
> Apple Pay, low-fee ACH & SEPA bank transfers, Google Pay, and PayPal)
> https://donorbox.org/pricing tells only Stripe's credit card, ACH and
> Paypal processing fees. I guess SEPA is the cheapest one in Europe.
> Maybe it has a fixed fee and depends on bank. It is good that there
> are many options. Donorbox itself takes 1.5%.
>
> Do we have a policy on how to use the money we receive? What has been
> done with funds collected by BountySource, for instance?
>
> On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 11:14 PM Yousuf Philips <ypharis at gmail.com> wrote:
>> HI Kevin,
>>
>> Would discourage the use of platforms that charge platform fees like gofundme, indiegogo, etc.
>>
>> If Xfce ever is set up as a non-profit, donorbox.org would be a good choice to look at.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Yousuf
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 4:57 AM Kevin Bowen <kevin.bowen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Thanks for the input Bruno.
>>>
>>> I think part of what you wrote neatly summarizes my concerns/criteria in finding a suitable alternative to bountysource. I definitely do not wish to place an undue administrative burden on the devs by using an org that requires providing tax papers(e.g. 1099s) upfront. Especially since many of these folks are located outside of the U.S. So, they have already been disqualified, in my opinion. The GitHub Sponsors program would be one of those, for example (among other reasons for not wanting to use them ;-)). Many of the programs that I have been looking use PayPal, or Stripe as a backend for fiscal disbursement. That is pretty common denominator with many of the candidates.
>>>
>>> I think Andre, in a separate mail, has addressed some of your other points.
>>>
>>> And just for the sake of clarity/transparency. Here is the list, in no particular order of importance, of the organizations that I have been researching besides opencollective.com:
>>>
>>>
>>> Patreon Developer https://www.patreon.com/developers
>>> GoFundMe
>>> liberapay https://liberapay.com/
>>> paypal
>>> coil https://coil.com/discover
>>> indieagogo
>>> snowdrift.coop
>>> Software in the Public Interest (SPI) https://www.spi-inc.org/
>>> Software Freedom Conservancy https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/
>>> https://www.oss.fund/
>>>
>>> Thanks again,
>>>
>>> Kevin
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4/20/21 9:58 AM, Bruno Schmidt wrote:
>>>
>>> Greetings to y'all!
>>>
>>> Fwiw: if your objective is to withdraw from bountysource (@ https://www.bountysource.com/teams/xfce ) then the link to that service should be removed from xfce's page ( @ https://www.xfce.org/getinvolved ) sooner than later. As you can see, donations are still flowing in, thus donors will have to be contacted to redirect their payment directives -- not an easy task, for sure...
>>>
>>> I have looked at kde.org, ubuntu-mate, mate-desktop, linux mint, opencollective, patreon, and other paywalls, and would humbly suggest to develop a PayPal-based solution. For the simple reason that it their API works well and can be used internationally. However, there's a rub: if the person/entity that manages (read: admin & bank accounts) the PayPal account is a US-"taxpayer" (has an SSN or applied for/uses an EIN), then the flow of donations becomes subject to US tax-laws per se, and possibly tax liabilities, and perhaps additional information-report filing requirements (ie f1099) on US recipients of donated funds.
>>>
>>> On the up-side, Incorporating a non-profit corp / trust  /foundation here in one of the US states is relatively simple and cheap, but does require a "registered agent" (for legal process) in the state of incorporation, ie Nevada or Washington.
>>>
>>> Just some constructive thoughts. Cheers, BW
>>>
>>> ------------------
>>>
>>> On 4/19/21 5:31 PM, kevin.bowen at gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> That was definitely not the case. But thank you.
>>>
>>> On 4/18/21 6:23 PM, Yousuf Philips wrote:
>>>
>>> After we got rejected, I had reached out to the person handling social media for Endeavor and he found it strange that Xfce would be rejected and said "If he [Kevin] wanted to join the team, then I understand the rejection. This is only reserved for the founders and our fiscal host. If he has an Open Collective account he should be joining it. By it, I mean the collective."
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Yousuf
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 18, 2021 at 7:15 AM Kevin Bowen <kevin.bowen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> It appears that Open Collective has admitted an error and reversed their
>>>> decision for not allowing Xfce to join one of their communities/fiscal
>>>> hosts. *shrug* I'll pick this up again next week.
>>>>
>>>> Kevin
>>>>
>>>> On 4/15/21 1:41 PM, Kevin Bowen wrote:
>>>>> Update:
>>>>>
>>>>> Open Collective is quickly being moved off of the table as a viable
>>>>> fiscal host for the Xfce project.
>>>>>
>>>>> I had applied to join one of there collective, and was rejected
>>>>> because Xfce did not meet their criteria.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.oscollective.org/#criteria
>>>>>
>>>>> I can only guess that Xfce is not popular, or open source enough for
>>>>> them. Perhaps we don't have enough GitHub stars on our repositories.
>>>>> :-/ I don't really know as they have not responded to my specific
>>>>> questions.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am still sort of engaged with them; but, this reception may be a
>>>>> good indicator that we may not want to deal with them. We shall see.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kevin
>>>>>
>>>>> On 4/13/21 9:22 PM, Kevin Bowen wrote:
>>>>>> Hello all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Xfce project is currently in the process of looking to engage
>>>>>> with a new
>>>>>> organization to help us manage our collective funds as well as allow
>>>>>> us to
>>>>>> solicit donations and encourage fundraising efforts directed to end
>>>>>> users who
>>>>>> would like to support Xfce financially.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Back in June 2020, Simon had elaborated
>>>>>> [here](https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/18/why-bountysource-why/)
>>>>>> as well as
>>>>>> [here](https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/26/bountysource-update/)
>>>>>> on some of the issues encountered with Bountysource and that Xfce
>>>>>> has, subsequently,
>>>>>> disabled its bug bounties and is looking to separate from its
>>>>>> association with
>>>>>> Bountysource.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As of this month, the Xfce team is considering signing up with
>>>>>> [opencollective](https://opencollective.com/) to assist us in
>>>>>> managing donations and financial contributions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There are a few other options/orgs that are still being considered;
>>>>>> but, opencollective is looking like a contender for where we will be
>>>>>> moving towards to manage collecting funds.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hopefully, we can announce, in a few weeks, that we are open for
>>>>>> business; and,
>>>>>> a few new donation buttons can be put up on our pages. Perhaps we can
>>>>>> even do a PR push to do a fundraiser. I am open to suggestions on
>>>>>> how, exactly, to pursue this.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That being said, I would like to open this up to the general dev
>>>>>> mailing list for discussion and feedback for at least two weeks
>>>>>> before we make a final decision. As of today, the decision to go with
>>>>>> opencollective is not yet final.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any constructive feedback is welcome. Additionally, we are open to
>>>>>> considering other sites/orgs for handling our donations.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> kevin
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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