7 ms·

I do not normally rant, but tip4commit and its ilk are some of the most infuriating people in the world to deal with, since they're opting other people's projec

I do not normally rant, but tip4commit and its ilk are some of the most infuriating people in the world to deal with, since they're opting other people's projects into something that has all sorts of legal/taxation consequences and think that "we have no way to remove you once you get opted in" is an acceptable answer. I'd push complaints further up to GitHub, since I'm sure something in the way this works violates their ToS, but ultimately that wouldn't do anything except cause them to self-host their code and keep running the "service".

demetris 12y ago
Maybe contacting their hosting provider could be an additional way to approach the problem, since, from what I can tell, the messages they send to contributors are spam.
- csdrane 12y ago
  Not sure how the process works, but what about getting their domain added to Spamhaus's lists? [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project
- ubernostrum 12y ago
  We (Django) already threatened that a while back. They still insist they will not remove projects or stop collecting donations on behalf of non-consenting projects. All they did was manually disable some of the spam coming toward our committers.
  - brador 12y ago
    Assuming you had the muscle, what's the worst a dev could theoretically hit them with? Could they be succesfully sued? DMCA?
    - tachion 12y ago
      You do realise that there is life and even entire civilizations outside of the USA, where DMCA holds no jurisdiction and the entire idea of suing becomes much more complicated? Especially when it seems from the GitHub discussion thread the tip4commit founder lives in a place where there is no regulations regarding what is a spam and what is not. ;)
      - sfk 12y ago
        DMCA being relevant or not, my understanding is that the takedown notice goes to the website's ISP (LINODE-US in this case).
    - iolsantr 12y ago
      If a project name was trademarked, you might be able to get them for trading on that name, maybe?
      - brador 12y ago
        Can you trademark open source project names?
        pmh 12y ago
        I think so, yes. See Iceweasel[0], the custom Debian build of Firefox. I'm not sure that you'd be successful in using trademark law in this particular scenario though. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_rebranded_by_the_Debian_project#Iceweasel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_re...
        JohnTHaller 12y ago
        Absolutely. Mozilla, Firefox, OpenOffice, Apache, Debian, etc are all registered trademarks and can not be used by others without permission.
        natch 12y ago
  - jacques_chester 12y ago
    Who holds the trademark for Django? That person or organisation might have standing in some jurisdictions to ask for it to be removed. (IANAL, TINLA)
    - ubernostrum 12y ago
      The Django Software Foundation is custodian of the registered IP of Django, including the trademark: https://www.djangoproject.com/trademarks/ https://www.djangoproject.com/trademarks/ If you want to support Django and its community and development (which includes more than just commits to a git repository), there is also a mechanism to donate to the DSF: https://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/donate/ https://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/donate/
    - kingkilr 12y ago
      Django's trademark is held by the Django Software Foundation.
randallsquared 12y ago
How can there be taxation consequences unless you act to set up a bitcoin address and accept the offered tip? If you've done all that, I think it's clear you know what you're doing. If you don't do that, then the money (apparently?) returns to the project you committed to, from whence it came. The only way there could be tax is if you receive the money, and that can only happen by you deliberately becoming involved.
- hack_edu 12y ago
  People have legitimate reasons to avoid messing with BTC or others. Some people don't even want to hassle with currencies beyond their own. Even if they oblige in accepting BTC and just convert it to their preferred currency, they'd be forced to go through the process of signing up and verifying with some sort of exchange. What if they don't want to do business with those institutions, or share their financial details to yet another third-party? Cryptocurrencies will succeed, thankfully, but some people don't want to put their toes in those legal waters yet. They will also have to spend more time administering to local laws and taxes regarding donations, which eats away the time they have for other much more fun things.
  - Blahah 12y ago
    Nobody is being forced to accept the money, and therefore nobody is being forced to interact with bitcoin. The money is there if they want to claim it. If not, no problem, they can just ignore it in which case it doesn't affect them.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - hack_edu 12y ago
      Would the project be sustainable, or more fair, if it allowed project maintainers to whitelist currencies, and manage that integration for them? That seems more appropriate and follows the the spirit of giving that the project encourages.
Cakez0r 12y ago
Those projects are in the public domain. If there are purposes that you don't want your project to be used for then forbid it in the license. When you put your contact information in the public domain and then complain about being notified when somebody has given you money, I feel like you're complaining just for the sake of complaining. Set up filter rules or don't put your contact information on the internet. If I was denied the chance to receive a donation for a contribution I made to an open source project essentially because the "project owner" doesn't agree then I'd be very annoyed.
- jordanpg 12y ago
  > then forbid it in the license Isn't this really all there is to say on this subject?
  - eropple 12y ago
    No, it's not. The software itself has nothing to do with taking donations on its behalf.
    - chillingeffect 12y ago
      not a lawyer, but one quick way to gain some protection for these developers would be to treat their online archives at github as IP, use it in some minimal commerce activity and copyright the name of the product. At that point, it would be less legally defensible for tip4commit to solicit donations for them.
  - mpatch 12y ago
    No. It's irrelevant and wrong. The third party site raising money in these projects' names is not using code from the projects to do so, it is only using the name. They are not bound by any license offered by the projects. Maybe the projects' authors can pursue some kind of action for that alone, but it has nothing to do with the terms under which the project is licensed.
    - 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
smoyer 12y ago
This is the OSS crowd-funding/tipping equivalent of GetSatisfaction and UserVoice. Both started as service-desk/bug-tracking platforms that included the software of completely unaffiliated companies but have morphed into customer engagement platforms as SaaS.
eli 12y ago
Set aside the legal/tax questions since it just brings out the armchair lawyers. It is simply not cool to use a project's name to collect money from its fans without their permission. And without any promise that the money will make it to the intended recipient. And certainly without any indication of what happens to the money that doesn't make it to the recipient.
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 12y ago
  Simply put: it should be opt-in, not opt-out.

demetris 12y ago

Maybe contacting their hosting provider could be an additional way to approach the problem, since, from what I can tell, the messages they send to contributors are spam.

csdrane 12y ago
Not sure how the process works, but what about getting their domain added to Spamhaus's lists? [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spamhaus_Project
ubernostrum 12y ago
We (Django) already threatened that a while back. They still insist they will not remove projects or stop collecting donations on behalf of non-consenting projects. All they did was manually disable some of the spam coming toward our committers.
- brador 12y ago
  Assuming you had the muscle, what's the worst a dev could theoretically hit them with? Could they be succesfully sued? DMCA?
  - tachion 12y ago
    You do realise that there is life and even entire civilizations outside of the USA, where DMCA holds no jurisdiction and the entire idea of suing becomes much more complicated? Especially when it seems from the GitHub discussion thread the tip4commit founder lives in a place where there is no regulations regarding what is a spam and what is not. ;)
    - sfk 12y ago
      DMCA being relevant or not, my understanding is that the takedown notice goes to the website's ISP (LINODE-US in this case).
  - iolsantr 12y ago
    If a project name was trademarked, you might be able to get them for trading on that name, maybe?
    - brador 12y ago
      Can you trademark open source project names?
      - pmh 12y ago
        I think so, yes. See Iceweasel[0], the custom Debian build of Firefox. I'm not sure that you'd be successful in using trademark law in this particular scenario though. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_rebranded_by_the_Debian_project#Iceweasel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_re...
      - JohnTHaller 12y ago
        Absolutely. Mozilla, Firefox, OpenOffice, Apache, Debian, etc are all registered trademarks and can not be used by others without permission.
        natch 12y ago
- jacques_chester 12y ago
  Who holds the trademark for Django? That person or organisation might have standing in some jurisdictions to ask for it to be removed. (IANAL, TINLA)
  - ubernostrum 12y ago
    The Django Software Foundation is custodian of the registered IP of Django, including the trademark: https://www.djangoproject.com/trademarks/ https://www.djangoproject.com/trademarks/ If you want to support Django and its community and development (which includes more than just commits to a git repository), there is also a mechanism to donate to the DSF: https://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/donate/ https://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/donate/
  - kingkilr 12y ago
    Django's trademark is held by the Django Software Foundation.

randallsquared 12y ago

How can there be taxation consequences unless you act to set up a bitcoin address and accept the offered tip? If you've done all that, I think it's clear you know what you're doing. If you don't do that, then the money (apparently?) returns to the project you committed to, from whence it came. The only way there could be tax is if you receive the money, and that can only happen by you deliberately becoming involved.

hack_edu 12y ago
People have legitimate reasons to avoid messing with BTC or others. Some people don't even want to hassle with currencies beyond their own. Even if they oblige in accepting BTC and just convert it to their preferred currency, they'd be forced to go through the process of signing up and verifying with some sort of exchange. What if they don't want to do business with those institutions, or share their financial details to yet another third-party? Cryptocurrencies will succeed, thankfully, but some people don't want to put their toes in those legal waters yet. They will also have to spend more time administering to local laws and taxes regarding donations, which eats away the time they have for other much more fun things.
- Blahah 12y ago
  Nobody is being forced to accept the money, and therefore nobody is being forced to interact with bitcoin. The money is there if they want to claim it. If not, no problem, they can just ignore it in which case it doesn't affect them.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - hack_edu 12y ago
    Would the project be sustainable, or more fair, if it allowed project maintainers to whitelist currencies, and manage that integration for them? That seems more appropriate and follows the the spirit of giving that the project encourages.

Cakez0r 12y ago

Those projects are in the public domain. If there are purposes that you don't want your project to be used for then forbid it in the license. When you put your contact information in the public domain and then complain about being notified when somebody has given you money, I feel like you're complaining just for the sake of complaining. Set up filter rules or don't put your contact information on the internet. If I was denied the chance to receive a donation for a contribution I made to an open source project essentially because the "project owner" doesn't agree then I'd be very annoyed.

jordanpg 12y ago
> then forbid it in the license Isn't this really all there is to say on this subject?
- eropple 12y ago
  No, it's not. The software itself has nothing to do with taking donations on its behalf.
  - chillingeffect 12y ago
    not a lawyer, but one quick way to gain some protection for these developers would be to treat their online archives at github as IP, use it in some minimal commerce activity and copyright the name of the product. At that point, it would be less legally defensible for tip4commit to solicit donations for them.
- mpatch 12y ago
  No. It's irrelevant and wrong. The third party site raising money in these projects' names is not using code from the projects to do so, it is only using the name. They are not bound by any license offered by the projects. Maybe the projects' authors can pursue some kind of action for that alone, but it has nothing to do with the terms under which the project is licensed.
  - 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

smoyer 12y ago

This is the OSS crowd-funding/tipping equivalent of GetSatisfaction and UserVoice. Both started as service-desk/bug-tracking platforms that included the software of completely unaffiliated companies but have morphed into customer engagement platforms as SaaS.

eli 12y ago

Set aside the legal/tax questions since it just brings out the armchair lawyers. It is simply not cool to use a project's name to collect money from its fans without their permission. And without any promise that the money will make it to the intended recipient. And certainly without any indication of what happens to the money that doesn't make it to the recipient.

1qaz2wsx3edc 12y ago
Simply put: it should be opt-in, not opt-out.