Maxwell posted details of the PayPal donations account that has been set up by the FSSN for receiving funds for the Diaspora project. I’m sure he will update here too soon - if not the email and the PayPal button code is on the press@ box.
PayPal shouldn’t be the only option - but it looks like we will have to start with that and work with the FSSN in the future to provide more options.
Any ideas what kind of page we should have for donations? Anyone want to take a stab at prototyping one?
IMHO we could add a donations page without too much fuss or promotion, then slowly start saying we accept donations. No point in shouting for money as we didn’t want a crowdfunding either.
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I have an email thread telling me this is the donation button from someone from the SFLC, and an address to mail the check to for the other paypal assets. Happy to forward it to whoever wants it as proof (seems weird to paste it here but I can?)
The Paypal donation form linked from the jd.com home page doesn’t mention Diaspora at all - just says that you are giving money to the FSSN. We need some clarity that this is indeed making a donation to Diaspora, care of the FSSN, and not to the FSSN for whatever other work they do. I think it should be so stated on the Paypal donation page, so that anyone who uses it can be absolutely clear that this is what is happening, and that their money is not going to be lost in the coffers of the FSSN.
I’ve no problem with Paypal being used as a method of donation, if that’s the most popular method. It would be good to add other methods later if FSSN will accept them.
thanks for your patience. @jonnehass and me had the chance to get direct feedback from one of the representatives of the FSSN to clarify this story.
The PayPal account backing the donation button is not owned by “The diaspora* Foundation” which is caused by the fact there is no “diaspora* Foundation”. Diaspora is now a project which gets managed by the Free Software Support Network, which is basically the Software Freedom Law Center. The SFLC is a very nice free software-supporting organization founded by Eben Moglen. The FSSN is managing the funds for Diaspora as they are already a non-profit organization, and becoming one is hard time-consuming. Getting managed by the FSSN enables us to work on the project instead of working on becoming a non-profit. As the FSSN is managing the donations, the PayPal account is owned and managed by the FSSN. As they assured, all the PayPal money will be available to us.
We’re currently working on getting some FSSN people involved in our Loomio discussions. Until we worked that out, you “have” to trust us - @jonnehass, @seantilleycommunit, @maxwellsalzberg and me.
“I hereby declare that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, embedding the PayPal button is fine.”
Note: We should write some sentences about this FSSN story below the PayPal button on the projects website.
Proposal: Apply for Flattr non-profit and add a button to project site
We should apply for non-profit account at Flattr, which is a very popular micro-donation site for individuals and projects. The non-profit status would mean 100% funds received from donates and in theory we should get it via the FSSN.
Regardless whether this succeeds, if this proposal is agreed, we should create a Flattr account and add a button on the project site (footer maybe?).
Outcome: The community does not want to Flattr individual developers, pods or our friends (=software components and platforms).
Votes:
Yes: 2
Abstain: 0
No: 3
Block: 0
Note: This proposal was imported from Loomio. Vote details, some comments and metadata were not imported. Click here to view the proposal with all details on Loomio.
Also btw, anyone been working on the donations page?
We should probably start drafting some rules for our community - who has responsibility for things like project donations etc - those need to be written down.
Btw, Flattr has payouts to PayPal - and in fact better the Flattr money can be used to do things like flattr’s to devs and projects we like, for example, without the necessary need to pay out.
I don’t agree on this reasoning. If the Flattr donations were paid out, they would go to the FSSN since Flattr payouts are via PayPal. But we can get some love and show some love as a project without ever touching cash.
I think we’re just shooting ourselves in the leg if we go all bureaucracy in everything…
I think we’re just shooting ourselves in the leg if we go all bureaucracy in everything…
Yes, we are. That’s the way it is. There is nothing we can change about this.
If the Flattr donations were paid out, they would go to the FSSN since Flattr payouts are via PayPal.
To be legally legal (wait, that’s a fucked up sentence, nvm), the account has to be created by the FSSN (at least in their name), which they - given the information I got some months ago are still valid - will not do.
I’m really sorry for blocking this, but I cannot unblock this until we got some statements from the FSSN itself (heyas dudes, I know you are reading this!) or somebody who knows better (Maxwell for example).
It sounds to me the whole FSSN thing was just one big bad idea. Maybe we should start thinking of other options.
Other opinions on the Flattr thing vs legality? I really wouldn’t start worrying about nitpicking things here - it’s not like any of us are legally responsible.
What do you think the FSSN will do if we create a Flattr account and add it to the project page - but never cash out so really we never see the money? Sue us?
But the fact that they will host Diaspora legally doesn’t mean they want to have anything to do with us 