Re: Can I donate in bitcoin?
On Wed, August 27, 2014 04:54, martin f krafft wrote:
> also sprach Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> [2014-08-26 19:43 -0700]:
>> I believe Debian's major expenses are Debconf, team meetings
>> (mostly travel and possibly some lodging and food), and computing
>> hardware. I would be surprised if Bitcoin were useful for the
>> first two. The latter seems likely to have the most potential to
>> take Bitcoin.
>
> The benefit of using Bitcoin for DebConf and sprints is to be able
> to reimburse people without the costs of cash or international money
> transfer. This is, in fact, one of the main ways I could see Debian
> use Bitcoin.
I doubt whether such transaction costs are really a significant part of
Debian's expenditures. From my locale I know that transfers within the
eurozone are already free. But probably Lucas can answer this. (One thing
that's inconvenient is that nowhere on debian.org can I find even a high
level report / yearly statement of what Debian spends its money on.)
The question about where to spend them on is a question on whether to keep
Bitcoin or convert it immediately. However, to the original question of
whether to accept Bitcoin, I say a full yes.
Debian should make it as easy as possible for people to donate to us.
People want to support us, we should be grateful and make this at least a
hassle for them as possible and align maximally with their wishes (of
course informing them about drawbacks, e.g. transaction costs, of certain
options over others). So if there is significant demand to be able to make
such donations, we should accept them.
In fact, it's quite a pity that Debian's donations page is really not
inviting to donate; with much text, including a piece of history on early
Debian finance, expresion of hope for company donations, a statement that
we can't buy our own hardware (?), a link to a very unwieldy form on the
SPI donation page and no option for Paypal except through the Italian TO
whose website is in Italian. When people come to this page, they want to
know how to give to Debian as efficiently for them as possible. These are
the options, transfer your money to this account, send checks there,
Bitcoin to there, click here for Paypal.
Cheers,
Thijs
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