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If someone donated me a brand new mid-engine Corvette, it would be a huge headache because I couldn't afford the taxes & maintenance. I think in this case, FOS

If someone donated me a brand new mid-engine Corvette, it would be a huge headache because I couldn't afford the taxes & maintenance. I think in this case, FOSS would stand to gain more by not receiving money-laundered transactions which, as someone else pointed out in this discussion, would create a compliance nightmare. To put it this way: would you accept 1,000 dollars from me if it would take you 100 hours of your life to receive?

mrtranscendence 4y ago
I suppose that in this case the project received enough money to hire two lawyers to deal with it full time for a year, so as long as there's a chance it could still be worth it. I'd put the odds pretty low, though.
Dylan16807 4y ago
If someone gives you a brand new car, and you really don't want to be bothered with it, I think you could arrange a sale for 2/3 its value in a couple hours. > To put it this way: would you accept 1,000 dollars from me if it would take you 100 hours of your life to receive? Does that really apply here? If this money can't be touched, then it's a minor time sink with zero benefit. If there is a way to dump in 100 hours and extract the money, it's worth it because it's so much. That analogy is more fitting to a 1 ETH donation.
Ajedi32 4y ago
Right, and that's the point. If an open source project can't receive an anonymous donation without a "compliance nightmare", then what does that say about the laws and regulations which created that nightmare in the first place? Keep in mind that there is, as of right now, no evidence that this cash was "laundered" or in any way associated with any nefarious activity. It's merely anonymous.
- acdha 4y ago
  > If an open source project can't receive an anonymous donation without a "compliance nightmare", then what does that say about the laws and regulations which created that nightmare in the first place? This makes it sound like this happened in a vacuum, but those laws and regulations are in response to real world events and you have to consider that when talking about whether laws are unreasonable. For example, many people would have ethical objections to accepting a donation from an unknown source (what if the money was generated from some activity I object to?), don't want to deal with potential hassle if the source does something to trigger legal attention, or the risk of a non-zero chance of some unsavory sorts showing up and “suggesting” that you give them some fraction of it as clean cash, etc. Allowing anonymous transactions means that the latter two kinds of events will happen on an somewhat regular basis, which is why most people accept laws requiring financial institutions to know their customers' identities as a necessary cost. If you say magic internet money is exempted from those requirements, well, there are going to be a whole bunch of surprisingly well-funded open source projects in Mexico paying salaries which make FAANG employees weep with envy.
- pavlov 4y ago
  Who can receive $400k today from an unknown source without any questions asked? Nobody — not an ordinary person, not a small business, not a foundation. What exactly makes an open source project so special that it should be exempt from the regulations that apply to everyone else? And if that were the case, what would prevent an open source project from being just a smokescreen for something else? Obscure API implementations paying pseudonymous developers for PRs with anonymous donation money seems like a fine kind of laundering operation.
  - Ajedi32 4y ago
    > Obscure API implementations paying pseudonymous developers for PRs with anonymous donation money seems like a fine kind of laundering operation. If that happens then you investigate, find out if it is a money laundering scheme, and bring a criminal prosecution if it is. You don't just assume they're guilty because the transaction was anonymous, or ban privacy tools and conduct mass surveillance on every transaction to make sure none of them are suspicious. It's kinda wild how many people on HN suddenly become anti decentralization and pro mass surveillance whenever the topic of cryptocurrency comes up.
bergenty 4y ago
What are you talking about? You just sell the thing immediately.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ascar 4y ago
> To put it this way: would you accept [350,000] dollars from me if it would take you 100 hours of your life to receive? Fixed the amount for you. Yes, absolutely. I would spend 100 hours to receive the 350,000. That's 3500 per hour.
- ram4jesus 4y ago
  Thank you for the correction. Assuming the money would be ethical and cleared by the government (two separate things), I too would absolutely take it. :P

mrtranscendence 4y ago

I suppose that in this case the project received enough money to hire two lawyers to deal with it full time for a year, so as long as there's a chance it could still be worth it. I'd put the odds pretty low, though.

Dylan16807 4y ago

If someone gives you a brand new car, and you really don't want to be bothered with it, I think you could arrange a sale for 2/3 its value in a couple hours. > To put it this way: would you accept 1,000 dollars from me if it would take you 100 hours of your life to receive? Does that really apply here? If this money can't be touched, then it's a minor time sink with zero benefit. If there is a way to dump in 100 hours and extract the money, it's worth it because it's so much. That analogy is more fitting to a 1 ETH donation.

Ajedi32 4y ago

Right, and that's the point. If an open source project can't receive an anonymous donation without a "compliance nightmare", then what does that say about the laws and regulations which created that nightmare in the first place? Keep in mind that there is, as of right now, no evidence that this cash was "laundered" or in any way associated with any nefarious activity. It's merely anonymous.

acdha 4y ago
> If an open source project can't receive an anonymous donation without a "compliance nightmare", then what does that say about the laws and regulations which created that nightmare in the first place? This makes it sound like this happened in a vacuum, but those laws and regulations are in response to real world events and you have to consider that when talking about whether laws are unreasonable. For example, many people would have ethical objections to accepting a donation from an unknown source (what if the money was generated from some activity I object to?), don't want to deal with potential hassle if the source does something to trigger legal attention, or the risk of a non-zero chance of some unsavory sorts showing up and “suggesting” that you give them some fraction of it as clean cash, etc. Allowing anonymous transactions means that the latter two kinds of events will happen on an somewhat regular basis, which is why most people accept laws requiring financial institutions to know their customers' identities as a necessary cost. If you say magic internet money is exempted from those requirements, well, there are going to be a whole bunch of surprisingly well-funded open source projects in Mexico paying salaries which make FAANG employees weep with envy.
pavlov 4y ago
Who can receive $400k today from an unknown source without any questions asked? Nobody — not an ordinary person, not a small business, not a foundation. What exactly makes an open source project so special that it should be exempt from the regulations that apply to everyone else? And if that were the case, what would prevent an open source project from being just a smokescreen for something else? Obscure API implementations paying pseudonymous developers for PRs with anonymous donation money seems like a fine kind of laundering operation.
- Ajedi32 4y ago
  > Obscure API implementations paying pseudonymous developers for PRs with anonymous donation money seems like a fine kind of laundering operation. If that happens then you investigate, find out if it is a money laundering scheme, and bring a criminal prosecution if it is. You don't just assume they're guilty because the transaction was anonymous, or ban privacy tools and conduct mass surveillance on every transaction to make sure none of them are suspicious. It's kinda wild how many people on HN suddenly become anti decentralization and pro mass surveillance whenever the topic of cryptocurrency comes up.

bergenty 4y ago

What are you talking about? You just sell the thing immediately.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ascar 4y ago

> To put it this way: would you accept [350,000] dollars from me if it would take you 100 hours of your life to receive? Fixed the amount for you. Yes, absolutely. I would spend 100 hours to receive the 350,000. That's 3500 per hour.

ram4jesus 4y ago
Thank you for the correction. Assuming the money would be ethical and cleared by the government (two separate things), I too would absolutely take it. :P