Dne, 11. 11. 2010 01:23:51 je Stefano Zacchiroli napisal(a):
general unhappiness (at least as it appears from this list, which is notnecessarily representative of all developers, users, etc., obviously).
I'll take the above statement as an invitation to add my 2¢. (As merely a user of Debian, I've never posted to this list before).
<FWIW>It is hard to pinpoint what exactly bothers me with flattr on Debian Planet. It's more a general sense of unease than a well-defined feeling. I can isolate some points though:
1. flattr being a commercial entity (if it were SPI or FSF instead of flattr, I'd have absolutely no problem with it); again, hard to pinpoint exactly why, it's just a gut feeling of mine;
2. flattr telling its users what their minimum monthly expenditure should be (comes across as preposterous; amounts that are negligible for a Westerner, may be prohibitive in some parts of the world);
3. flattr taking 10% of each transaction (definitely greedy; if this was a not-for-profit organization, again, I'd have no problem with giving it 10%, or more; but I'd never click on links that give a *commercial* entity such high margins; and there's no way I'm buying the BS about their reducing the percentage as soon as flattr "takes off");
4. Debian being a "love child" and all that ... I mean, just look at the etymology of its name; I get uneasy when Debian is mixed with activities that are too obviously (or should I say basely) lucrative; there's enough of that out there already, no need to overly pollute Debian Planet too;
5. Given the above reservations, and those already expressed by other posters, how many Debian Planet readers would eventually join flattr? Would it make sense to "taint" Debian Planet with something that, to say it mildly, is considered "dubious" by at least some of its readers, just for perhaps a few dozen "click-throughs" a month?
Despite all this, I *strongly* support:-- the general idea that there should be (many, and various) mechanisms enabling users to tangibly thank both the members of the Debian team individually, and the Debian Project as a whole (besides buying pre-packaged Debian CDs and DVDs) -- the proliferation of alternative forms of micropayment enabling netizens to award persons and projects they are grateful to -- by which I mean forms that skip the middle-men and finally enable us to directly thank *the* person, *the* project, without some corporation taking its share on that (yet again). -- it's high time some free/libre micropayment project for replacing PayPal, flattr et al. finally emerged ;-)
</FWIW> -- Cheerio,Klistvud http://bufferoverflow.tiddlyspot.com Certifiable Loonix User #481801 Please reply to the list, not to me.