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From the launch post on Medium: ” Token flowing is where things get really interesting, but first let’s set things straight: we’re not changing the nature of o
by pavlov 4y ago
From the launch post on Medium:
” Token flowing is where things get really interesting, but first let’s set things straight: we’re not changing the nature of open source. It’s still free. web3 has enabled novel new ways to distribute value, and with our system people who care about the health of the open source ecosystem buy some token and stake it. Periodically, we reward this staking because it is securing our token network. We give a portion of these rewards to the staker and a portion to packages of their choice along with all the dependencies of those packages.”
Sounds like the reason to buy the token is basically charity. It’s donations to open source, just dressed up in a lot of blockchain jargon.
I’m all for compensating open source developers, but why can’t this scheme work with, you know, actual money? It’s definitely possible to get people to donate to creators. My monthly Patreon bill is several hundred dollars. If a better alternative came along that meaningfully improved distribution to deserving projects, I’d be happy to give it a shot. But I’m never going to buy some crypto token for that.
- nextweek2 4y agoBecause of the other aspects which could be coded in. You can audit how much people get, you could fractionalise a bug bounty, you cut out the middleman (payment processor), you enable people in poorer countries access to becoming developers. You’re using patreon who are taking a cut and there’s no guarantee they won’t disappear with people’s money and they rely on the donor not really caring if they get something of value for the money (you don’t have a real recourse other than to cancel). We’ve recently been discussing a bug in the Qt toolkit, we couldn’t afford to pay for it to be fixed, but we could contribute with other small businesses to get it solved. A smart contract could automate that in a trust-less way.
- api 4y agoWhat percentage actually goes to open source? What percentage is pocketed? Do we know? Usually the purpose of a token is to bag a quick cash out for whomever mints it.
- themoonisachees 4y agoRight? This is even worse because now instead of people getting paid directly they get some crypto coing which may or may not have value, and if you can sell the tokens then people are going to buy in with the expectation to be able to sel it back, which means that the token has to perform, which it can't, as is the case for all crypto.
- digitaltrees 4y agoIt’s possible but in practice most open source projects do not ever support salaries.
- H12 4y ago> but why can't this scheme work with, you know, actual money? That's something that's been kicking around the back of my mind for some time. Like, what's stopping the web3/crypto folks from using a distributed ledger for invoicing/billing with traditional money? Why must we try to take down the centralized banking system at the same time? Strikes me as the most extreme form of scope creep.