It's also worth noting that Bountysource only allows you to unilaterally "tip" projects if a member of that project has signed up on Bountysource, so they're not guilty of tip4commit's transgression.
What do we have to gain by spiting them for a good-faith attempt at dialog?
This is entirely different than someone representing themselves as accepting donations on behalf of someone else.
I can see a case for saying "no" in other ways or about other things, but simply saying "nobody can collect money for this but me or the people I approve" would make your project non-free and non-open-source. And if that's what you want, then pick a different license.
If things get to the point where Bountysource is pointing at the terms of the license to defend what they are doing, it's pretty likely they are also at the point where they are significantly undermining the idea that what they are doing is helping the project.
Attaching the bounties to specific issues does seem less fraught than tipping every commit for a project.
It's a little discouraging that "claiming a bounty" only means you can use it on Bountysource, as the likely reason to do that is for promotion (it sounds a lot better to have a bunch of situations where you can say there is no fee and only one where there is a fee):
Does 100% of the bounty go to the developer?
The developer who solves the issue will receive the full bounty amount in their Bountysource account. These funds can be used to create more bounties, donate to teams, or pledge fundraisers. If a developer wishes to cash out their balance there will be a 10% fee.
What does it cost to claim a bounty?
Nothing. The amount displayed as the bounty total is the exact amount a developer will receive in their Bountysource account upon payout.
Just inverting the order of those makes it seem pretty silly:
What does it cost to claim a bounty?
Nothing. The amount displayed as the bounty total is the exact amount a developer will receive in their Bountysource account upon payout.
Does 100% of the bounty go to the developer?
The developer who solves the issue will receive the full bounty amount in their Bountysource account. These funds can be used to create more bounties, donate to teams, or pledge fundraisers. If a developer wishes to cash out their balance there will be a 10% fee.
Maybe, but the lead developer is the one in charge of the software. If the community doesn't like it, they can request a change in leadership or fork the project.
> So if two people want to take "your" free software and enter an economic agreement to improve "your" free software in a way that benefits both of them, why should you have a right to say "no"?
For all the reasons mentioned above (forward-planning, insight, etc.). If someone wishes to make a change to a project, in such a way that benefits them, the project itself is never required to just accept the changes. That someone can fork the project.
Is that always the right answer? No. But it is one possibility.
And while I completely agree with your point that the project code can be seen as everyone's, how does some third party have the right to define how someone manages his or her own gate?
I'm looking at it more as, it's the maintainer's right to manage the project and it's issues as he or she sees fit. I can see how the maintainer doesn't have the right to manage the code outside of the repo, but telling someone how to manage their own repo...
Why is this even civilly discussed? If someone here offered a way to ensure effective delivery of spam email there would be the armed posse showing that guy the door. The same thing needs to happen here. Someone please enlighten me why that isn't taking place.
If you think that people contributing to your project should not be compensated (which is a reasonable thing to think IMO), the burden is on you to make sure they are not, and it is not the responsibility of a third party to make sure that they are not getting paid.
At the end of the day, the project creator gets to say how his or her code is used. If this continues to be an issue, then people are going to start coming up with new licenses that explicitly state their wishes that setting up these types of bug bounty systems are not a right that is granted.
http://lwn.net/Articles/201488/
It's every developer's dream to get paid to work on free and open source software. But whenever someone really starts to work towards getting paid, well, the root of all evil steps in.
I commend tip4commit and bountysource and its ilk, not because individually they are ethical or moral about it, but because it is attempting to solve a real problem in the community, and someone is bound to get it right.
