5 ms·

Their donation page: https://www.videolan.org/contribute.html#money https://www.videolan.org/contribute.html#money

by faitswulff 9y ago

e40 9y ago
Just gave $50. I've been using VLC for years.
- ztoben 9y ago
  Same here. Honestly didn't realize they had no model for income.
  - moviuro 9y ago
    There are lots of excellent projects that have income issues: GnuPG, OpenBSD to cite the most prominent ones. https://www.gnupg.org/donate/index.html https://www.gnupg.org/donate/index.html (though they are at ~€5k/month now?) http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2018.html http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2018.html http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html
    - johnnycarcin 9y ago
      What is annoying is many groups like this make it hard for us that have employers that will match donations for non-profits to donate. I tried to get OpenBSD added to our companies system awhile back but the group that manages that process said they did not get a response from the OpenBSD group when they reached out to them to get a bit of information. I can (and do) donate outside of my companies process, but they are missing out on additional money.
  - bpicolo 9y ago
    Someone wanted to give them millions to put ads on it, but the primary maintainer said no way. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048
    - jbk 9y ago
      That would be me :)
      - bpicolo 9y ago
        Out of curiosity, have you considered monetization strategies like an open pay-per-video store? VLC is awesome, and I kind of wish it got the monetary compensation it deserves hah. I've heard that indie movie distribution is a dreadful space.
        etix 9y ago
        We are exploring some ways but we have nothing to announce yet.
        jbk 9y ago
        Such things does not exist because of copyright holders forces DRM
        mgkimsal 9y ago
        Certainly no expert in the field here, but maybe a store/market built around vimeo's "on demand" stuff? A partnership with vimeo whereby VLC would get a % of sales when purchased via VLC might help both parties (more exposure to vimeo via VLC, revenue for VLC, etc).
        pathseeker 9y ago
        Is vimeo on-demand DRM free?
        mgkimsal 9y ago
        https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/224821167-Does-Vimeo-use-Digital-Rights-Management-DRM-to-keep-people-from-pirating-videos-?flash_digest=f4af29f7cabff13d806ad63912002ac1e635cc3a https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/224821167-Does-Vime... It seems that it's up to the content owners as to how much they would want to enable. https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/235694348-How-to-buy-rent-and-subscribe-to-On-Demand-videos https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/235694348-How-to-bu... "When you buy a VOD, you will be able to stream its videos for as long as they remain on Vimeo. If the seller allows, you will also be able to download the videos to your computer and devices, DRM-free."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  > I've been using VLC for years. Good point: there is plenty of software where people have no issues with buying a new licence every couple of years, Compare that to (in my case) sixteen years of happy VLC usage across many different computers and phones, and it's obvious that I have some donations to catch up on!
- aswanson 9y ago
  Yeah I gave a few years ago but considering how many hours of playback I've had since then, time to donate again.
Paul-ish 9y ago
Could they set up a Patreon, or is that only for individuals?
- moviuro 9y ago
  * Recurring SEPA transfer? (Europe-only AFAICT) * Use their Paypal link, see if you can enable recurring payment there? (I'm not familiar with this though)
- metalliqaz 9y ago
  Leads of other open source projects have patreon accounts
- pvdebbe 9y ago
  liberapay please
hart_russell 9y ago
They need an Ethereum address
- jnordwick 9y ago
  So that the $20 donation one minute can turn into $50 the next minute... Oops i mean $15, no $35, whoops $12, wait $27. Edit: $14 Edit: $117 Edit: got hacked
  - glenneroo 9y ago
    Still better than $0.
- glenneroo 9y ago
  Maybe they do, but they currently accept BTC and Monero. Just convert your ETH to one of those :)
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
Thanks for the link. It had honestly not occurred to me to donate before. VLC has been around for so long, and has always worked well, been unobtrusive, and made so few unnecessary changes, that I have taken it for granted. I wish I could say the same for other open source software, then I might donate to them too.
bringtheaction 9y ago
Oh hey they take donation in crypto currency! Nice! I wish more open source projects did.
francoi8 9y ago
I gave 10€.
tomaskafka 9y ago
Thanks for posting the link. Donating was so easy I actually did it (glad to help with $20) :))).
brwsr 9y ago
Why donations via Paypal? Paypal sucks and steals! They make up their own (totally unreasonable) rates for exchanging Euro's to USD.. Better show an Ethereum address or so, it's just a few minutes work and might render a much larger donation due to the expected increase in price over time.
- mgkimsal 9y ago
  maybe because a lot of the potential people you might want to donate actually use paypal? there's already monero and bitcoin donation addresses there, but paypal is something most people already know about and can deal with (from multiple currencies around the globe).
  - r3bl 9y ago
    I've downloaded a couple of hundreds of euros last year to various open source and Internet advocacy projects, and I've always used PayPal to do so. I love the projects I've donated to, but not enough to trust them all not to fuck up storing my banking info. This way, I have all my donations easily available via one interface that I don't use for much else.
- simcop2387 9y ago
  Paypal is "easy" to setup and maintain for many donation type cases like this, and provides an incredibly low barrier for entry to accept donations, this low barrier of entry can easily make up (to the developers) for the skimming done by paypal with fees and bad currency conversions. Also keep in mind that people in europe are likely not converting to USD when donating, the VLC non-profit is europe based so there's likely not a conversion there happening. It's going to happen USD to Euro though. And if that's still a concern, you can also do a direct bank transfer in europe pretty easily as they provide that information, making it without fees for a lot of EU citizens. And while they don't have an Ethereum address, they do have bitcoin and monero, two of the biggest players in this space. It would be nice to see more options just so that one could use whatever cryptocurrency is going to have lower transaction fees at the time.
astura 9y ago
Thanks for linking, VLC has been one of my favorite pieces of software for, idk, at least 15 years, so donating is a no brainer.
jamesiscool 9y ago
Tried to donate but PayPal was useless as usual

Their donation page: https://www.videolan.org/contribute.html#money https://www.videolan.org/contribute.html#money

e40 9y ago

Just gave $50. I've been using VLC for years.

ztoben 9y ago
Same here. Honestly didn't realize they had no model for income.
- moviuro 9y ago
  There are lots of excellent projects that have income issues: GnuPG, OpenBSD to cite the most prominent ones. https://www.gnupg.org/donate/index.html https://www.gnupg.org/donate/index.html (though they are at ~€5k/month now?) http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2018.html http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2018.html http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html
  - johnnycarcin 9y ago
    What is annoying is many groups like this make it hard for us that have employers that will match donations for non-profits to donate. I tried to get OpenBSD added to our companies system awhile back but the group that manages that process said they did not get a response from the OpenBSD group when they reached out to them to get a bit of information. I can (and do) donate outside of my companies process, but they are missing out on additional money.
- bpicolo 9y ago
  Someone wanted to give them millions to put ads on it, but the primary maintainer said no way. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15372048
  - jbk 9y ago
    That would be me :)
    - bpicolo 9y ago
      Out of curiosity, have you considered monetization strategies like an open pay-per-video store? VLC is awesome, and I kind of wish it got the monetary compensation it deserves hah. I've heard that indie movie distribution is a dreadful space.
      - etix 9y ago
        We are exploring some ways but we have nothing to announce yet.
      - jbk 9y ago
        Such things does not exist because of copyright holders forces DRM
        mgkimsal 9y ago
        Certainly no expert in the field here, but maybe a store/market built around vimeo's "on demand" stuff? A partnership with vimeo whereby VLC would get a % of sales when purchased via VLC might help both parties (more exposure to vimeo via VLC, revenue for VLC, etc).
        pathseeker 9y ago
        Is vimeo on-demand DRM free?
        mgkimsal 9y ago
        https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/224821167-Does-Vimeo-use-Digital-Rights-Management-DRM-to-keep-people-from-pirating-videos-?flash_digest=f4af29f7cabff13d806ad63912002ac1e635cc3a https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/224821167-Does-Vime... It seems that it's up to the content owners as to how much they would want to enable. https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/235694348-How-to-buy-rent-and-subscribe-to-On-Demand-videos https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/235694348-How-to-bu... "When you buy a VOD, you will be able to stream its videos for as long as they remain on Vimeo. If the seller allows, you will also be able to download the videos to your computer and devices, DRM-free."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
vanderZwan 9y ago
> I've been using VLC for years. Good point: there is plenty of software where people have no issues with buying a new licence every couple of years, Compare that to (in my case) sixteen years of happy VLC usage across many different computers and phones, and it's obvious that I have some donations to catch up on!
aswanson 9y ago
Yeah I gave a few years ago but considering how many hours of playback I've had since then, time to donate again.

Paul-ish 9y ago

Could they set up a Patreon, or is that only for individuals?

moviuro 9y ago
* Recurring SEPA transfer? (Europe-only AFAICT) * Use their Paypal link, see if you can enable recurring payment there? (I'm not familiar with this though)
metalliqaz 9y ago
Leads of other open source projects have patreon accounts
pvdebbe 9y ago
liberapay please

hart_russell 9y ago

They need an Ethereum address

jnordwick 9y ago
So that the $20 donation one minute can turn into $50 the next minute... Oops i mean $15, no $35, whoops $12, wait $27. Edit: $14 Edit: $117 Edit: got hacked
- glenneroo 9y ago
  Still better than $0.
glenneroo 9y ago
Maybe they do, but they currently accept BTC and Monero. Just convert your ETH to one of those :)

AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago

Thanks for the link. It had honestly not occurred to me to donate before. VLC has been around for so long, and has always worked well, been unobtrusive, and made so few unnecessary changes, that I have taken it for granted. I wish I could say the same for other open source software, then I might donate to them too.

bringtheaction 9y ago

Oh hey they take donation in crypto currency! Nice! I wish more open source projects did.

francoi8 9y ago

I gave 10€.

tomaskafka 9y ago

Thanks for posting the link. Donating was so easy I actually did it (glad to help with $20) :))).

brwsr 9y ago

Why donations via Paypal? Paypal sucks and steals! They make up their own (totally unreasonable) rates for exchanging Euro's to USD.. Better show an Ethereum address or so, it's just a few minutes work and might render a much larger donation due to the expected increase in price over time.

mgkimsal 9y ago
maybe because a lot of the potential people you might want to donate actually use paypal? there's already monero and bitcoin donation addresses there, but paypal is something most people already know about and can deal with (from multiple currencies around the globe).
- r3bl 9y ago
  I've downloaded a couple of hundreds of euros last year to various open source and Internet advocacy projects, and I've always used PayPal to do so. I love the projects I've donated to, but not enough to trust them all not to fuck up storing my banking info. This way, I have all my donations easily available via one interface that I don't use for much else.
simcop2387 9y ago
Paypal is "easy" to setup and maintain for many donation type cases like this, and provides an incredibly low barrier for entry to accept donations, this low barrier of entry can easily make up (to the developers) for the skimming done by paypal with fees and bad currency conversions. Also keep in mind that people in europe are likely not converting to USD when donating, the VLC non-profit is europe based so there's likely not a conversion there happening. It's going to happen USD to Euro though. And if that's still a concern, you can also do a direct bank transfer in europe pretty easily as they provide that information, making it without fees for a lot of EU citizens. And while they don't have an Ethereum address, they do have bitcoin and monero, two of the biggest players in this space. It would be nice to see more options just so that one could use whatever cryptocurrency is going to have lower transaction fees at the time.

astura 9y ago

Thanks for linking, VLC has been one of my favorite pieces of software for, idk, at least 15 years, so donating is a no brainer.

jamesiscool 9y ago

Tried to donate but PayPal was useless as usual