Restricted Financial Support for Open-Source? 54
Anonymous Writer asks: "PayPal has become the standard for making donations to Open-Source projects, and in many cases the only way. Out of the 247 countries and territories represented by top-level domains on the Internet, credit cards are available in 128. However, PayPal only accepts credit cards from 45 of these countries, which excludes 83 from using their service. Nearly two-thirds of the countries on the Internet with valid credit card billing services are currently prevented from making donations using PayPal. Even credit cards issued from those 45 accepted countries with billing addresses not among them are excluded, which affects people working overseas and expatriots. If you want to support the Open-Source Software movement but don't live in a PayPal-accepted country, what are your alternatives?"
Alternatives..... (Score:5, Insightful)
WHAT HAPPENED TO CYGWIN? (Score:1, Offtopic)
sources.redhat.com
Down for almost a week now.
Re:WHAT HAPPENED TO CYGWIN? (Score:1)
Re:WHAT HAPPENED TO CYGWIN? (Score:1)
Regardless, thanks for the update.
Re:WHAT HAPPENED TO CYGWIN? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WHAT HAPPENED TO CYGWIN? (Score:2)
Alternative? (Score:2, Funny)
An Envelope, A Folded Piece of Paper, Cash (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:An Envelope, A Folded Piece of Paper, Cash (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:An Envelope, A Folded Piece of Paper, Cash (Score:2)
Re:An Envelope, A Folded Piece of Paper, Cash (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:An Envelope, A Folded Piece of Paper, Cash (Score:2)
paypal this paypal that.
Re:An Envelope, A Folded Piece of Paper, Cash (Score:1)
Why would they? You don't see McDonalds asking people to try Burger King as well...
Re:An Envelope, A Folded Piece of Paper, Cash (Score:3, Insightful)
Er.
The U.S. is the only civilized place that still uses cheques. I'll venture to guess that the U.S. is one of the countries that is on the PayPal credit card whitelist.
Now, even if a cheque were an appropriate option, one from another state is often not able to be cashed, let alone one from another country.
There is such a thing as an 'international cheque', but those take about two to four weeks t
Re:An Envelope, A Folded Piece of Paper, Cash (Score:2)
Money transfer services such as Western Union are available in most places from what I understand though and something like that could be ideal.
An e-mail... (Score:2)
Some people don't want/expect monetary compensation for their development work. I personally like knowing that someone has found a program useful.
(Food/beer is always good too)
Cannot you transfer money from your bank account? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it might mean giving Paypal access to a bank account - but if you are an Internet user in one of the banned countries, might it not be worth creating an account solely to tie to Paypal?
Yes, it sucks that Paypal is trying to reduce their exposure to fraud and keep their service cheap. But cannot this be worked around?
Re:Cannot you transfer money from your bank accoun (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cannot you transfer money from your bank accoun (Score:2, Interesting)
Banned? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cannot you transfer money from your bank accoun (Score:2, Interesting)
incidentally, impacts people in the US too, if we don't have a credit card
or, possibly due to having done a Google search on Paypal first and turned
up a hillion jillion horror stories, are unwilling to give Paypal access to
our full line of credit. I'm in the former category: I'm one of those
curmudgeons who refuses to have a credit card. There are a plethora of
reasons for this: I receive more junk mail from the credit card industry
t
Re:Cannot you transfer money from your bank accoun (Score:1)
This is a point with which I completely agree but is entirely irrelevant to the discussion.
Although I have no credit cards and never have, I can happily use the credit card network. How? I have a charge card, an American Express card: you must pay it in full every month. I also have a debit card, where the money comes d
However you normally send money... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that's hard.
But what the hell does it have to do with Open Source? Or geekery in general?
Re:However you normally send money... (Score:1)
Currency (Score:1)
Re:Currency (Score:1)
Why not simply write a cheque? the payee can then just bank it in the normal way. Sure, it probably takes 30 days to clear, but it is much more secure than sending cash, and WAY cheaper than direct transfer from your bank account (at least for all the banks I've used here in Australia).
Sometimes a low-tech approach is best.
Re:Currency (Score:1)
For the small amounts most sites typically ask for ($25 or so)
Donations? Better idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
I have this problem, too (Score:4, Informative)
I have been hitted hard by PayPal's decision not to send cheques to my country, which is an EU member.
I plan to use MoneyBookers [moneybookers.com] instead. I have communicated with their support department for a small problem and my experience was very positive, they seem to care about their customers and they offer very good support.
Another alternative is iKobo [ikobo.com] which gives you an ATM card to withdraw money from your account.
PayPal needs some competition (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a software developer, and since getting full down into open source, i have a BIG software repository to use. and when i get paid for my work, i'd like to set apart some 5-7% and donate it to those OSS projects i've benefited from... but most of them (especially the smaller ones) only have PayPal. so, i can't contribute monetarily.
of course, i do it the other way, with bug reports and suggestions. sometimes a bit of code. but i know how important is to get money now and then!
sometimes, i just click on a few of their ads; hoping they'll get some click points.
Re:PayPal needs some competition (Score:2)
Take a look at the alternatives to PayPal [paypalwarning.com]. There is also e-gold [e-gold.com].
Quit Fixating On "Projects" (Score:3, Insightful)
> movement but don't live in a PayPal-accepted
> country, what are your alternatives?"
Pick a developer (preferably not a big-name one) and mail him a check or money order.
Try Amazon Honor System (Score:2)
Though the recipients need to have a US CC, the donators just need to have Amazon accounts and some way of making payments.
Not perfect, but may cover some of the people that paypal doesn't. Just be sure to read the docs.
Oh for ****'s sake ! (Score:2)
Oh, wait, I must be new here. Or not. Or... argh !
Anyway, a short (? yeah right...) recap for the ADHD-like attention span posters.
PayPal *IS* the most frequently used "online money transaction" tool: pretty easy to use, damn convenient too most of the time, (barely) acceptable service cost (for small sums), etc.
Because of that, most people that *CAN* use it will use it, and tend to forget other alternatives IF their main purpose ISN'T cashing in massively (for ins
Re:Oh for ****'s sake ! (Score:2)
Re:Oh for ****'s sake ! (Score:2)
"Why do I need a U.S. credit card to use the Honor System?
At this time, we are able to offer the Amazon Honor System to those with U.S.-based credit cards only. We hope to be able to expand the Honor System offering in the future."
So nopes, not really... even less versatile (now) as PayPal.
Re:Oh for ****'s sake ! (Score:2)
Take a look at the alternatives to PayPal [paypalwarning.com]. There is also e-gold [e-gold.com].
Easy. Code for sex. (Score:4, Funny)
1. Locate an open-source coder.
2. Approach said coder's dorm room or apartment in a trenchcoat (naked underneath), with a six-pack in one hand and a bag of Chinese food in the other.
3. When the coder opens the door, announce "I noticed you checked my bug-fix into CVS this afternoon! Let's celebrate!" Lean back so the trenchcoat opens up, and hold up the beer and Chinese food.
4. Be ready to administer CPR if the coder has a heart attack.
Western Union (Score:2)
But it can be done.
Re:Western Union (Score:1)
Re:Western Union (Score:2)
Re:Western Union (Score:1)
don't send money (Score:1)
Amazon to the rescue? (Score:1)
You could have a wishlist [amazon.co.uk] over at the friendly one-click creating Amazon?
I've had one for a few years to support some [debian-adm...ration.org] of my work [gnump3d.org].
Occaisionally I receive something and it's a nice bonus to actually getting something done.
Of course it doesn't work out so well when your code gets added to Linux distributions and nobody gets it from your website directly anymore - that was the thing that I noticed which made the initial donations tail off.
Still I do earn a little bit every now and again doing remote support
By their disservice, banks became my enemies. (Score:3, Interesting)
For me as an OSS developer, none. Micropayments were forbidden by law here in Czech Republic several years ago, killing lot of fresh internet companies. Banks would not give away their monopolies easily: every money transaction from abroad would cost me at least 50USD deducted from my account, no matter what the sender pays to his bank for the transaction. So, it is cheaper for me to code for free.