Re: Supporting Debian - donations, et. al.
I guess I touched a nerve. My apologies if no humor was seen
in my last message. The phone number worked, I just sent $50
via E*Trade. (That's what I used to pay for the Redhat CDs -
not that I used them, but I would have felt like a leech just
downloading their ISOs.)
The string "Kelleher" is sufficient criteria, it's not a common
name. I haven't gone through my old account records so I can
only hope I remembered to send you that check. I'm not a big
fan of gentle reminders. After the first email went unanswered
I decided to prokove a response - I'll admit it's not always
a good technique (ok, it's rather immature) but it was effective
in this case.
As for including the Technical Committee, I have to strongly
disagree. Their duties definitely impact Debian's finances.
I didn't donate because I was asked, instead I was freely given
a very nice Linux distribution due to the hard work of people
the Technical Committee represents and in return I decided to
give something back.
--- Branden Robinson / SPI Treasurer
<branden+spi-treasurer@deadbeast.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2002 at 02:03:30PM -0700, Jason D. Kelleher wrote:
> > Unfortunately, all the time apt-get saves me is more than
> > lost by mailing a paper check or emailing the SPI Treasurer to
> > setup a wire transfer. I even tried to send you a paper
> > check through my E*Trade account, but it requires a valid
> > phone number for the recipient... no good.
>
> You can use the Treasuer's home phone number, if you want.
>
> +1 317 841 8285
>
> Note that this number is subject to change when a new person
> becomes
> Treasurer.
>
> > I emailed the SPI Treasurer regarding this sometime last
> > January (Yes, I'm "keep[ing] in mind that the duties of the
> > SPI Treasurer are at present undertaken by a volunteer, not by
> > a paid employee of SPI.") regarding some form of Credit Card or
> > Paypal payment and received no response.
>
> I have one mail from you ever (if the string "Kelleher" is a
> sufficient
> search criterion); it was dated Wed, 15 Aug 2001 10:08:14 -0700
> (PDT).
>
> It said only this:
>
> Do you have plans to setup an online donation system
> through a
> service such as Paypal? It would make it much easier for
> me to
> show my appreciation every couple of 'apt-get install
> upgrade'
> runs. Meanwhile, I guess I'll just slow-mail you a check.
>
> Thanks for the nice distribution.
>
> I suggest that it might be more satisfying to send a gentle
> reminder to
> someone after a couple of weeks, instead of waiting 13 months for a
> reply and then getting so upset that you mail a bunch of people who
> don't have power to do anything about the issue, like Debian's
> Technical
> Committee, whose duties do not impact Debian's finances in any way
> at
> all.
>
> http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
>
> Furthermore, the SPI Board has in fact discussed electronic payment
> processing; see, for example:
>
> http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/minutes/20020507
>
> You might want to scroll down to "Merchant account update".
>
> Regarding wire transfers, you have never contacted me to make
> arrangements for this; I do not know how to satisfy expectations
> you do
> not express.
>
> > So now I'm asking the Debian Organization and SPI Board - I
> > can't give you time, please help me give you money.
> [...]
> > P.S. The co-worker who convinced me to switch from Redhat to
> > Debian a year ago is standing over my shoulder laughing
> > hysterically, but I'm serious. And he's more than willing to
> > pay too if it doesn't involve paper checks.
>
> I regret that SPI does not currently have infrastructure in place
> to
> support the means of making donations that you would most prefer.
> All I
> can ask is that you remain patient. As the SPI Board processes its
> backlog of minutes, you'll be able to read more about this issue.
>
> --
> G. Branden Robinson | Never underestimate the
> power of
> Debian GNU/Linux | human stupidity.
> branden@deadbeast.net | -- Robert Heinlein
> http://www.deadbeast.net/~branden/ |
>
> ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature
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