[Owncloud] Fwd: Flattr for the release?

Sat Oct 8 15:53:45 UTC 2011

On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 11:05 AM, Frank Karlitschek <karlitschek at kde.org>wrote:

> Hi Michael,
>
> in general it´s a good idea to collect donations of course. But this has
> some important implications.
>
> - We need an organization who is the owner of this flattr account. It´s now
> a good idea that this account is owned by me, you or any other individual
>
I agree it should be owned by the community, but why not start with it owned
individually, till we have a foundation? As I said: Keep the money in the
flattr account till ownCloud can use it.

> - We need a democratic elected organization who decided how this money is
> spent.
>
I agree, but we first need enough money to be spent. So in my opinion: Start
now. Leave it on Flattr. Think about how to spent it, when it is reasonable.
If we start collecting money after getting an organization, we miss a lot of
opportunities.

> - We need a shared bank account to hold this money.
>
Why not see the flattr account as shared bank account for now?

> - We need a non profit status of this organization so that we don´t have to
> pay taxes.
>
Agreed. As I wrote: The payout date is important, so we could handle the
money later. Or we could use the KDE e.V., if they don't mind? So have a
dedicated owncloud flattr account and payout to the KDE e.V. bank account
with the tag ownCloud and use it for only this.

> - A person to handle the money transfers, book keeping, tax declaration and
> more.
>
Depends on what we decide to do. We could ask KDE e.V. to handle one
transaction every few months, depending on the incoming money, or we could
appoint someone, if we have an organization.
(If nooone is found, I would do it. But I think the KDE e.V. solution sound
better.)

> - A several other requirements.

> It´s very important to me do this in the right way (TM) because this has a
> lot of potential to create significant harm inside our community like for
> example tax implications for individuals, legal implications for some of us,
> mistrust inside the community about the spending of the money and a lot more
>
> ownCloud doesn´t have this kind of organization to handle this donations in
> the right way at the moment. But this is not a problem because we are part
> of KDE and KDE has the KDE e.V. which is created exactly for that reason.
>
> So what we should do here is to motivate our users to donate to KDE e.V.
> (perhaps with a flattr button or something else) and than we can expect from
> the KDE e.V. to support our developer meetings and other expenses we have.
>
I disagree. Why not use a dedicated donation account owned by KDE e.V. for
now so switching to a dedicated foundation would be easier.
Another method would be letting an individual handle the transactions and
donate it with the tag "ownCloud" to kde. (not the best way in my opinion.)

>

> Cheers
> Frank
>
>
Cheers
Michael

And sorry, don't want to stab you in the back, I just want a reasonable
discussion.

>
>
> On 08.10.2011, at 01:14, Michael Grosser wrote:
>
> > Hey,
> >
> > I'm Michael Grosser.
> > Just to give you a hint who I am:
> > I'm the guy providing http://demo.owncloud.org.
> >
> > For the upcoming release I wanted to suggest to implement flattr.combuttons.
> >
> > If you don't know what flattr is about:
> > Flattr is a microdonation system that launched in March 2010 on an
> invite-only basis[1] and then opened to the public on 12 August of the same
> year.[2][3]
> >
> > Flattr is a project started by Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson. Users are
> able to pay a small amount every month (minimum 2 euros) and then click
> Flattr buttons on sites to share the money they paid among those sites,
> comparable to an Internet tip jar. (The word "flattr" is used as a verb, to
> indicate payments through the Flattr system-so when a user clicks a Flattr
> button and they are logged in to the Flattr site, they are said to be
> "flattring" the page they are on.) Sunde said, "We want to encourage people
> to share money as well as content."
> > extracted from wikipedia.org
> >
> > The owncloud account is already set up and the code, is sort of in the
> start position. It is ready and could be made public in under 5 min.
> >
> > My idea is to have the flattr buttons ready for the release and think
> about what to do with the money later.
> > The money should be held in the flattr account till we know what to do
> with it. The payout would be the date important for anything legal anyway.
> >
> > My suggestion would be following buttons:
> >
> > one in the demo.owncloud.org header
> > one in the header of owncloud.org
> > and one for each specific page
> > and later perhaps one in the owncloud installation code (under a
> contribute tab under settings or so)
> >
> > The reason for so many buttons is in my opinion feedback. Users can
> appriciate the ownCloud project with the main button in the header, and
> could appreciate the demo with the button from the demo.
> >
> > As Jacob wrote in irc:
> > It's not about having the money from the docs go elsewhere. It is about
> giving the user the ability to be able to show a "directed" appreciation,
> e.g. "I really like that you have a demo server. keep it up!" or "That
> documentation really helped. Thanks!"
> > there's one button for the show itself, but another one for each episode
> to let the user be able to show "yes, _this_ was a great episode, thanks!"
> >
> > What is your opinion?
> > No buttons at all? Just one button? Any suggestions?
> >
> > Cheers Michael
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Owncloud mailing list
> > Owncloud at kde.org
> > https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/owncloud
>
> Frank Karlitschek
> karlitschek at kde.org
>
>
>
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