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<font size="-1">> Do we have a policy on how to use the money we
receive? What has been
<br>
> done with funds collected by BountySource, for instance?</font>
<p>To the best of my knowledge, other than claimed bounty bugs, no
money has been paid out from Bountysource contributions to Xfce
devs.</p>
<p>There is currently no policy for paying out as no money has been
paid out in the last 10-12 years, to my knowledge.<br>
</p>
<p>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. <br>
</p>
<p>I am not the Xfce accountant, so I cannot speak in any more
detail than that.</p>
<p>Regards,</p>
<p>kev<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/25/21 12:53 AM, Jarno Suni wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CADUUgvZ=3aXdad9J_dHNqxrA=iU8RCwLf5ade7H4x_EH=+MmQg@mail.gmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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)
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://donorbox.org/pricing">https://donorbox.org/pricing</a> 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 <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ypharis@gmail.com"><ypharis@gmail.com></a> wrote:
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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 <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:kevin.bowen@gmail.com"><kevin.bowen@gmail.com></a> wrote:
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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 <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.patreon.com/developers">https://www.patreon.com/developers</a>
GoFundMe
liberapay <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://liberapay.com/">https://liberapay.com/</a>
paypal
coil <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://coil.com/discover">https://coil.com/discover</a>
indieagogo
snowdrift.coop
Software in the Public Interest (SPI) <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.spi-inc.org/">https://www.spi-inc.org/</a>
Software Freedom Conservancy <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/">https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.oss.fund/">https://www.oss.fund/</a>
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 (@ <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bountysource.com/teams/xfce">https://www.bountysource.com/teams/xfce</a> ) then the link to that service should be removed from xfce's page ( @ <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.xfce.org/getinvolved">https://www.xfce.org/getinvolved</a> ) 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, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kevin.bowen@gmail.com">kevin.bowen@gmail.com</a> 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 <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:kevin.bowen@gmail.com"><kevin.bowen@gmail.com></a> wrote:
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
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:
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<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.oscollective.org/#criteria">https://www.oscollective.org/#criteria</a>
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:
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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](<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/18/why-bountysource-why/">https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/18/why-bountysource-why/</a>)
as well as
[here](<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/26/bountysource-update/">https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2020/06/26/bountysource-update/</a>)
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](<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://opencollective.com/">https://opencollective.com/</a>) 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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