Re: is it true about donations?

[Justin Mason <jm...@jmason.org>]

Matt Kettler writes:
> Robert - eLists wrote:
> > Is it really true that in all the time spamassassin has been alive that the
> > SA Team has only recv'd a hundred bucks or so in donations and such?
> 
> I'd say that's about half true. In so far as "donation of cash or items
> direct from user to developer's own pocket/home", that's probably pretty
> close to true. I can't exactly confirm that, but it's quite plausible. I
> don't think any team member has received any kind of substantial income.
> Any who have, feel free to correct me for speculating. :)
> 
> However, several of the SA developers have at various points in the past
> been employed by companies with a commercial interest in SpamAssassin.
> I'm not sure if any were directly paid to work on the OSS code, but I
> suspect that was the case. (However, we're talking a LONG time ago..
> 2.32 days)

Actually, part of my job description in a previous job was to spend a
certain amount of time working on the OSS code, a good bit more recently
than that. ;)

For what it's worth, I've heard from other projects where the "paypal
button on the homepage" model hasn't worked either.  In my experience,
it's easier for people (and companies) to express donations in "barter"
terms, than in direct monetary payment.

> Also, the project itself has received a lot of hosting donations. While
> this isn't of direct benefit to the developers, it does keep the project
> from costing the team lots of money out-of-pocket.
> 
> Of course, that naturally might lead folks to ask "why does the team
> continue to do this?".
> 
> Well, I can't speak for any other team members, but my small story goes
> like this:
> 
> First, scrolling back several years, I'm a software engineer, with a
> part time "second hat" of running the DMZ servers (email, www, etc) and
> firewalls for a small company of about 70 people. Spam and viruses are
> quickly becoming a problem. In my research, I discover MailScanner,
> which works with the particular AV product we have a site license for,
> and SpamAssassin works with it too. The two tools collectively make my
> life substantially easier.
> 
> However, neither tool is perfect. So, I spend some of my personal time
> on a PC at home creating a few rules, writing a few bits of
> documentation, etc. The rules are largely motivated by my own needs. I
> need SA to keep spam under control in my network, so I write rules to
> improve it. While I'm at it, it costs me nothing to give a copy of that
> work to the official tree, so I do. The documentation bits are mostly
> humanitarian on my part, athough sometimes they bemuse me as they are
> documentaries of my own bunglings through learning how SA works.  (most
> notably, the "Writing better rules" section of WritingRules in the wiki
> has a lot of this.. Every suggestion in there is as a result of some 
> naive mistake I made.)

Personally -- working on SpamAssassin has been some of the most enjoyable
and rewarding work I've performed in my career as a software engineer.
Also, it's probably paid better than any of the "closed-source" work I've
done, too; there are several jobs I wouldn't have gotten, if it wasn't for
the fact that I have SpamAssassin on my CV.  Open source works!

--j.

Re: is it true about donations?

[Per Jessen <pe...@computer.org>]

Justin Mason wrote:

> For what it's worth, I've heard from other projects where the "paypal
> button on the homepage" model hasn't worked either.  In my experience,
> it's easier for people (and companies) to express donations in
> "barter" terms, than in direct monetary payment.

For most companies, donations are much easier dealt with in straight
forward money terms, but they need an invoice which many OSS projects
cannot or do not issue.


/Per Jessen, Zürich

Re: is it true about donations?

["Daryl C. W. O'Shea" <sp...@dostech.ca>]

Gene Heskett wrote:

> I believe the major reason it doesn't work is related to the PayPal TOS.  
> There have been quite a few projects such as this one that have benefitted me 
> directly, and I am willing to donate a small "Hey, great stuff, I appreciate 
> it" message that people could "take to the corner ice cream store".
[snip]
> All I do know is that there really should be a direct "from me to you" funds 
> transfer path that works as well as me handing that $20 bill to you in 
> person.  The feasability is the next thing to determine...

While not a way to send cash, the Amazon wishlists some of the 
developers have at least guarantee that it's probably something they 
want.  I believe most of the wishlists have at least some stuff starting 
around $10.

http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/spamassassin/trunk/CREDITS?view=markup

I'm not sure how well these work either, though... I don't know if 
anyone has ever received anything from their wishlists.  A few years ago 
I got a book, but that was for spending the better part of a week 
monitoring and fixing (a bug in) a user's spamd server (that they were 
using to sell filtering services).


Daryl

Re: is it true about donations?

[Loren Wilton <lw...@earthlink.net>]

> A 2 digit check, on a 5 digit account shouldn't be that big a deal, but 
> with
> PayPal in the handling chain, that 2 digit check has the possibility of
> turning into an empty account, and that's so not going to happen.

1.    Get yourself a VisaBucks debit card from some bank providing the 
service.  Transfer in the maximum $500.  (Or $23.72 if you prefer.)
2.    Get a Paypal account and attach it to that "credit" card.
3.    Use the Paypal button.  Assuming that they are immoral, they can drain 
the account for the entire $23.72 in it.

        Loren

Re: is it true about donations?

[Gene Heskett <ge...@verizon.net>]

On Tuesday 17 July 2007, Justin Mason wrote:
>Matt Kettler writes:
>> Robert - eLists wrote:
>> > Is it really true that in all the time spamassassin has been alive that
>> > the SA Team has only recv'd a hundred bucks or so in donations and such?

[...]

>Actually, part of my job description in a previous job was to spend a
>certain amount of time working on the OSS code, a good bit more recently
>than that. ;)
>
>For what it's worth, I've heard from other projects where the "paypal
>button on the homepage" model hasn't worked either.  In my experience,
>it's easier for people (and companies) to express donations in "barter"
>terms, than in direct monetary payment.

I believe the major reason it doesn't work is related to the PayPal TOS.  
There have been quite a few projects such as this one that have benefitted me 
directly, and I am willing to donate a small "Hey, great stuff, I appreciate 
it" message that people could "take to the corner ice cream store".

Unforch, I'm also retired, on a relatively fixed income that while it does 
have some "discretionary spending" wiggle room that would allow me to say 
thanks, the actual mechanism to do that opens me up to the possibility of 
electronic funds transfer fraud because PayPal seems to think that the only 
way to do business with them is to give them the routing numbers that allow 
them free access to extract whatever they think they need to balance the 
books at PayPal.

I do 99% of my bill paying online, and if it was as simple as having my bank 
send your project's head a check for $20, and have that automaticaly 
converted to your local monetary system at the current rate of exchange when 
your projects head takes it to his bank and deposits it, it would happen 
quite often.  The difference is that my writing the check puts the "is it 
good?" onus on those that handle it as that piece of paper makes its way back 
through the clearing houses to my bank, and they like being paid for that 
liability/risk.

A 2 digit check, on a 5 digit account shouldn't be that big a deal, but with 
PayPal in the handling chain, that 2 digit check has the possibility of 
turning into an empty account, and that's so not going to happen.

I have NDI if it would work or not, but no one seems willing to put a second 
donate button up that simply displays a valid address where I could send a 
donation, possibly even real cash.  And we won't know if it would work till 
someone tries it.  For all I know, fixed, per transaction fees might eat it 
all up & only the money changers wind up going to the store.

All I do know is that there really should be a direct "from me to you" funds 
transfer path that works as well as me handing that $20 bill to you in 
person.  The feasability is the next thing to determine...

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Brain fried -- Core dumped