July 24, 2019
Walter Bright wrote:

> On 7/24/2019 2:33 AM, ketmar wrote:
>> that is called "asking a permission". if there is anybody to whom somebody else has to explain how and why his money spent, that is called "asking a permission to spend money".
>
> The Foundation uses a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) for advice and for handling the accounting. We follow the CPA's advice to ensure we are following the law and doing things by the book.

and i am not trying to say that you're doing something wrong, or vile, or something like that. i am only trying to say that is a legal entity cannot even use its own money without Big Brother approval, then there is little sense in being "legal" (whatever that means) at all.
July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 09:20:43 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 08:47:26 UTC, Chris wrote:
>

>>
>> It'd be a pity if you lost Basil as a contributor, but this situation could have been avoided by better planning. If I were you, I'd try to make him change his mind, but instead you chose to be all official about it and give him a lecture about the law and voluntary efforts. This flies in the face of your usual mantra of D being a community effort and a "meritocracy". Your handling of this issue doesn't exactly encourage people to contribute, because they see what they get at the end of the day, a kick up the a**e. You know, a bit of common sense can get you a long way.
>
> I'm not sure what you're accusing us of here. Not having the foresight to provide bounties for fixing issues? The BountySource page was there for years and *no one was fixing the issues*. So when we shut it down, it really didn't seem like a priority to do the same thing again.

Exactly, not having the foresight of installing a payment system (of any sort), if paying money for bug fixes / issues is apparently such a complicated matter. And then there was a bounty system floating around somewhere, but you didn't exactly know or remember.

> No one "lectured" Basile. He was given valid reasons why the Foundation can't issue payments for past contributions. He was told we're planning to set up a new bounty system. That was almost three weeks ago. Now he's decided to criticize the Foundation about it publicly. I responded so that everyone understands why he couldn't be paid. I don't see how anyone gave him a "kick up the a**e".

My point was this: a) he was right that there is a problem with the "economic system", given that you failed to install a payment system, and b) given that he's a long-time contributor you could have approached the issue in a more sensitive manner. That's just common sense or EI / EL [1]. But maybe the DLF doesn't really care? I wonder.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 10:06:01 UTC, ketmar wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>
>
> and i am not trying to say that you're doing something wrong, or vile, or something like that. i am only trying to say that is a legal entity cannot even use its own money without Big Brother approval, then there is little sense in being "legal" (whatever that means) at all.

It means maintaining the status of a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and avoiding any penalties or jail time for the person handling the money.

In the modern world, attempting to shuffle around large amounts of cash outside of a legal entiry like a non-profit or a corporation is just a recipe for trouble. In my own case, as a permanent resident in Korea I can do almost anything a Korean can do, but not when it comes to international finances. I can't attach may Korean bank account to my PayPal account and I'm severely limited in how much money can be sent to me in a single transaction and annually from a single source unless I set up a business of some sort. Some people in some countries don't have certain transfer services available to them or (like me) are limited in how they can use them.

It would be hell trying to raise money from and pay money to people around the world without the D Foundation.
July 24, 2019
Mike Parker wrote:

(sighs) is there a real need to say "we need Big Brother approval to use our own money" with such many words?
July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 10:18:07 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

>
> It means maintaining the status of a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity and avoiding any penalties or jail time for the person handling the money.
>
> In the modern world, attempting to shuffle around large amounts of cash outside of a legal entiry like a non-profit or a corporation is just a recipe for trouble. In my own case, as a permanent resident in Korea I can do almost anything a Korean can do, but not when it comes to international finances. I can't attach may Korean bank account to my PayPal account and I'm severely limited in how much money can be sent to me in a single transaction and annually from a single source unless I set up a business of some sort. Some people in some countries don't have certain transfer services available to them or (like me) are limited in how they can use them.
>
> It would be hell trying to raise money from and pay money to people around the world without the D Foundation.

And knowing all this, it never occurred to anyone to set up a sound and transparent payment system? It wasn't until a company approached you that you figured out that it might be a good idea?

July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 10:34:57 UTC, Chris wrote:

>
> And knowing all this, it never occurred to anyone to set up a sound and transparent payment system? It wasn't until a company approached you that you figured out that it might be a good idea?

I don't know what you're going on about. The D Foundation has been paying people through multiple methods for a while now, using whatever transfer system charges the smallest amount of fees in the recipient's country. We don't need a bounty system to pay people. The bounty system is just to track how much money is associated with a specific issue.

Again, no one was taking advantage of the old system. Click on that bounty source link earlier in the thread and see how old many of those issues are. When fundraising options first fell on my plate, I didn't consider a new bounty system a priority because the old one never met its potential and there was never a clamour from the community for a new one. But if a company is willing to throw money at bugzilla issues, of course we're going to facilitate it. And rather than limit it to just that company, we're setting up a new system to let everyone participate.

If you think I screwed up by not starting a bounty system sooner, that's fine. But at least get your criticism on target.
July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 09:20:43 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

>
>> And now you say that you "cannot estimate when the bounty system will be ready because it depends on the company" only to inform people in the next sentence that you could launch it sooner, because all that is needed is an issue and a dollar amount. Was the community informed about this? If not why wasn't the community informed earlier?
>
> There is a company that wanted to pay out bounties and approached me for ideas how to go about it. I figured out how to do it with Flipcause and let them know. Now I'm waiting to hear what their budget is so we can pull the trigger. I was planning to make a blog post about it as soon as we got it set up. I only mention it here because it's on topic. If someone wants to apply a bounty to an issue sooner, then I can get it going sooner. Just let me know.
>
>

The question remains, if one issue and a dollar amount suffices to set up a bounty system with Flipcause, why did you decide to wait instead of going public immediately to tell the general user community to contribute issues and dollars in order to get things going asap, why wait until the company comes back to you, if apparently it doesn't depend on the company?

This issue shows quite nicely that there is a double standard in the world of D. Whenever there are complaints by ordinary users they are fed the line "We're all in this together, you have to make an effort too, you know." But then there are loads of things that the members of the general community / users are not informed of, although they do affect them and their work, and long-time volunteers are treated with disrespect. Doesn't make sense. One cannot help but notice that there's a small circle of people at the top, maybe with some affiliates in the industry, who do their own thing and then there is the rest, i.e. what is called "the community". D has basically become a political party. Joakim (another great contributor who has left the community) once asked me what had changed my mind about D so drastically, and - apart from the numerous technical issues - it's the fact that with the advent of the D Foundation D started to become a political party. Posts by the D leadership often read like press releases of political parties. "Mistakes were made", "we are planning to...", blah blah blah, but nothing ever happens. Chances are that people might accept it, if the leadership told them "We have our own agenda, we are catering to a select group of users, so take it or leave it", which is perfectly legit. But don't tell people that they can make a difference while in reality they can't. The good thing is that, unlike politics, technology and engineering do not forgive this kind of behavior.

July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 10:49:30 UTC, Chris wrote:

>>
>
> The question remains, if one issue and a dollar amount suffices to set up a bounty system with Flipcause, why did you decide to wait instead of going public immediately to tell the general user community to contribute issues and dollars in order to get things going asap, why wait until the company comes back to you, if apparently it doesn't depend on the company?

Because the company has a list of issues. So I had the choice of making the announcement with no issues seeded and ready to go, or making it with a number of issues seeded and ready to go. I opted for the latter.
July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 10:49:24 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 10:34:57 UTC, Chris wrote:
>
>>
>> And knowing all this, it never occurred to anyone to set up a sound and transparent payment system? It wasn't until a company approached you that you figured out that it might be a good idea?
>
> I don't know what you're going on about. The D Foundation has been paying people through multiple methods for a while now, using whatever transfer system charges the smallest amount of fees in the recipient's country. We don't need a bounty system to pay people. The bounty system is just to track how much money is associated with a specific issue.
>
> Again, no one was taking advantage of the old system. Click on that bounty source link earlier in the thread and see how old many of those issues are. When fundraising options first fell on my plate, I didn't consider a new bounty system a priority because the old one never met its potential and there was never a clamour from the community for a new one. But if a company is willing to throw money at bugzilla issues, of course we're going to facilitate it. And rather than limit it to just that company, we're setting up a new system to let everyone participate.
>
> If you think I screwed up by not starting a bounty system sooner, that's fine. But at least get your criticism on target.

First, I don't think you "screwed up" personally. It's a structural issue within the DLF. Someone sets up a bounty system that is not used, because people don't really know about it. I couldn't find a prominent link to it on dlang.org. Is there one? If yes, my bad that I didn't spot it. But then again, only because a thing is badly implemented that doesn't mean it's a bad idea as such. And apparently the DLF didn't care much either. Second, I didn't talk about a bounty system specifically but about a standardized transparent system that handles all transactions, so you can transfer money for bug fixes etc. with a mouse click and your a**e is covered at the same time. Third, I think it's not easy for you, because I believe that a lot of stuff is just dumped on you by the DLF.
July 24, 2019
On Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 10:49:30 UTC, Chris wrote:
> [snip]
>

It's not just "mistakes were made." Mike Parker is saying, "mistakes were made, but we are working on fixing them." I think many people would find it discouraging if you fault them for that.