Re: Debian accepting Social Micropayment?

[Steffen Möller <steffen_moeller@gmx.de>]

Hi Patrick,

On 08/18/2010 11:33 AM, Patrick Schoenfeld wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 06:18:39PM +0200, Steffen Möller wrote:
>   
>> On 08/17/2010 05:24 PM, Patrick Schoenfeld wrote:
>>     
>>> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 05:02:43PM +0200, Steffen Möller wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>> we should only help collecting when we are certain to know what we are
>> doing.
>>     
> Agreed.
>
>   
>>> 2) Not every *developer* in our project might agree that this money "should
>>> then go to upstream". After all we have packages which are *quite*
>>> a lot of work for the Debian developers maintaining them. They might
>>> find it unfair to see users spending money (possibly on their work)
>>> which then ends in the hands of other people.
>>>   
>>>       
>> well, that is correct, but this means that that maintainer should then
>> be considered a part of upstream, then. and hopefully upstream
>> recognizes that effort and gives some money to its package maintainer
>> and then co-developer.
>>     
> Ehm, yeah, and my father is the emperor of china, then.
> As you know, in Debian we have to deal at least with:
>
> - uncorporative upstreams
> - dead upstreams
> - corporative upstreams
>   
which would then fall under the "we don't know what we are doing",
and if upstream is not cooperative then one does not loose anything
either. It is just your pride that hurts.

But I have already come to accept that it may be preferable to not
go for a package-based collection. At least not as a start. Though
that is equally unfair to upstream, then. I hence like the idea to have
a tool that is suggestion where to donate to in dependency of the
packages that one has installed.

> But even for the last group no one can expect our upstreams
> to share donations with their downstreams. Consider the amount
> of work this would mean for them. How should this work
> after all?
>   
We are not talking about real money. It is only an opportunity
for our users to feel a bit better in that they can give something back
when they don't have the technical skills or time to do so.
I don't care.
> So clearly if we'd want to do this and if we'd want to share
> what comes in with our own developers we need to do the allocation
> (or give it into the hands of SPI for obvious reasons) ourselves.
>   
It is not on me to decide anything. To sum up:
When asking the spontaneous end user to donate, we shall not expect
them to distinguish between the upstream work and our packaging work.
I hence find it problematic to collect only for us. A Debian money drop
point should exist, and we should also use our presence to help upstream
to get some help, just to be fair, and let the user decide what route to go.

Many greetings

Steffen