Accepting money

Wuzzy

What is the best way to receive money (like donations) online without relying on proprietary software (including proprietary JavaScript on websites) along the way?

poVoq

Probably https://liberapay.com/

It can also be integrated with a self-hosted Fosspay but the direct Stripe integration requires JS for security reasons (yes, sometimes doing stuff locally in the browser is good 😅).

Other options that seem nice:

https://opencollective.com/
https://www.comradery.co/

Peter

poVoq but the direct Stripe integration requires JS for security reasons

I think Wuzzy doesn't worry about JS but about proprietary JS.

Modanung

Bank transfer still works; just share your IBAN. Similarly, accepting cryptocurrency is as simple as sharing your wallet ID... and there's libre wallets out there.

Wuzzy

LiberaPay itself is fine and I already have an account there but it's inactive. LiberaPay is basically just a frontend for PayPal and Stripe. PayPal is just an absolute trashfire, I think we can all agree on that. But Stripe does not seem trustworthy either. They're apparently an union-buster. Yeah ...

I used to accept Bitcoin but after only receiving 1 dono after 3 years worth 5 USD, and the sender even managed to somehow lose 45 USD due to "transaction fees" (??????), that wasn't really pleasant and showed me how out of touch with real-world usage Bitcoin actually is. And due to the proof-of-work nature literally destroying the enviroment and me coming to the opinion the Blockchain just kinda sucks I eventually made the decision to give up on cryptocurrency entirely. I also realized for the grand promise of Bitcoin to be true ("safe and reliable") I actually have to run a "full node" but this requires me to download hundeds of gigs only for the blockchain, i.e. litereally the entire freaking history of every Bitcoin transaction ever. The alternative is to just "trust the network". Yeah, right. I think Bitcoin is fascinating from a nerd / IT / theory perspective but when it comes to actually getting things done, or ethics, it all falls apart IMO.

I also dislike proof-of-stake because this is literally feudalism built into the protocol.
And due to the whole "web3" nonsense being a massive shitshow in general (see www.web3isgoinggreat.com/web1), I decided to distance myself from Crypto for the time being.
While many cryptos ARE compatible with FOSS, there is still so much else wrong with it for now. But I'm also not a super expert in this, there is so much crypto right now, it makes my head explode.
The biggest difficulty with crypto when you need to convert them to fiat currency (and I have to; the people that demand money from me only accept fiat, not crypto :D ) and all those weird currency swap websites make my head spin.

Oh, but I digress.

OpenCollective looks promising but there's a lot to read. I need to take a deeper look in it. At first glance, it doesn't seem to immediately disqualify itself, which seems nice.

Comradery seems to rely on JavaScript on the login/register page and licensing info is nowhere to be found. Comradery is obviously very very leftist but it always keeps frustrating me that "leftists" have successfully ignored the free software movement for decades now. :-( Also, it seems Comradery is technically yet another frontend for Stripe anyway. Sigh.

And about the IBAN thing ... yeah, had the same idea, but I don't know if it's safe to do so because of privacy reasons. Yeah, I'm not risking randos from the Internet raiding my home for the chance to earn 5 USD every 3 years.

Anyway, thanks for the replies. It seems FOSS and finance are still kinda at odds with each other, with the notable exception of cryptocurrency but this has its own unique problems.

TPW

Wuzzy Can't say much about the paying stuff, since I use Paypal/Steam to that regard (I'm not to fond of either), but about the privacy stuff - since I risk getting sued if I do not deliver my name on the "Impressum" of my page (german internet law...) I have my full address there. But I didn't had any trouble with it until now, the only thing that came was a most friendly letter.

Modanung

Wuzzy [...] I don't know if it's safe to do so because of privacy reasons.

You could open a separate account.

Anyone ever looked into or tried GNU Taler?

poVoq

@Wuzzy ~~isn't the main benefit of LiberaPay that they do in fact also manage IBAN bank transfers?~~ Seems like by far the best option if you are based in Europe.

@Modanung yes I looked into Gnu Taler, but it isn't really suitable for this. I really like the idea, but right now they are too stuck trying to get real banks on board and not making it easier for communities to run their own bartering systems or so based on it.

I did consider setting up Gnu Taler for a kind of "in-game currency" of sorts, where people donating to a project would get back an equivalent of GNU Taler based tokens to do various stuff with (mainly "voting" on stuff to be done or so), but after spending an afternoon trying to figure out how to host this in a way that this could be done I decided that without spending much more time developing specific tooling it wouldn't work. I still think it might be a good idea, but I don't have the time and motivation to do it myself.

Wuzzy

@poVoq: I have looked at LiberaPay again because I was surprised of hearing that it's now apparently an interface for IBAN transfers. But I could find no such thing. I have clicked through the menus and it still seems to be the case that you must have a PayPal or Stripe account.

Did I overlook something?

poVoq

Hmm 🤔 Looking at their website now I also can't find it. But a few weeks ago I am pretty sure it mentioned this option. Sorry for the mis-info then?

poVoq

(Edit: this is a reply to a now deleted comment)

Holding money like that is a legal and tax minefield, which is AFAIK why LiberaPay stopped trying to do similar things.

But even if you figure out some way to make it work without a banking license, you still will need some sort of formal non-profit organisation to run it.

Call me jaded, but such non-profits usually become self-perpetuating entities more concerned with paying salaries of their administrative staff than furthering the original goal.

glitchapp

poVoq you are probably right, I was just wondering if there's a better way to fund open source projects... maybe it is a bad idea after all...

mdtrooper

poVoq For avoid these kind of problems (holding money...) there is https://sfconservancy.org/ . Some years ago, I know this organization because they managemented the money of Godot.

TPW

poVoq Call me jaded, but such non-profits usually become self-perpetuating entities more concerned with paying salaries of their administrative staff than furthering the original goal.

The same criticism is raised against funding projects for specific projects - take Mozilla or the Wikimedia-Foundation.
In the end, imho it comes down to a double-bind situation: FLOSS-devs can either refuse to play by the rules of the market but then will be unable to compete on it; or they chose to participate in the market but invite all the ugly mess that playing by the market causes, eventually getting eaten by it.

There is no right life in the wrong. Adorno.

poVoq

mdtrooper that is the kind of nonprofit I was talking about. I don't know how much administrative overhead this one specifically has, but it tends to increase over time.

mdtrooper

Yes, but I think that it is better center the "job" of manage the money several free software projects in one nonprofit instead that each free software project spend time/money to manage the money.

Peter

But we weren't talking about the market. We were talking about funding organisations. Mozilla is a good example for being detached from the original goal.

TPW

Peter But we weren't talking about the market. We were talking about funding organisations.

If you talk about funding, you talk about the market.
There is no funding without commodification.

Peter

But funding doesn't mean you're eaten by the market.

TPW

Peter
As I tried to explain in the post you answered to: It does.
But you know what? If I write a lengthy essay we would really go off-topic. The topic wasn't "do foundations work out" but "how can I take money for my games without proprietary software".

AFAIK there is no foundation that is likely to support the OP and their - active, existing - projects. The linked foundation doesn't support games, and I don't know one who does. Neither did the OP ask for support through a foundation. This is a dead end.