Re: Integrated micro-donations -- Implementation: SPI vs plain-bank-account

[Davi Leal]

> > John Sennesael wrote:
> > > Implementation:
> > >
> > >  * Establish a non-profit entity in the US, and get an EIN (obtainable
> > >    on-line for no cost at the IRS website)
> > >
> > >  * Use the EIN to register a dedicated bank account for the virtual
> > >    currency.
> >
> > The idea to establish a non-profit entity in the US, and use it to
> > create the GNU Herds bank account is great!

MJ Ray wrote:
> Does the cost/risk of managing a non-profit entity outweigh the 5%
> which SPI would cost on income if GNU Herds became an associated
> project and there was no other problem?
>
> http://www.spi-inc.org/ and it is already described as something
> like PayPal for FOSS by one board member.

My current though is that SPI does not fit with the GNU Herds' requirements. 
Read below the rationale:

  * 5% cost on income!  Even 0.1% would be too much, IMHO.

    The proposed goal is to add to the pool of payment methods one which
    allows carry out micro-donations without any additional cost.

    That is to say, we should be able to donate 0.2 cents without
    additional costs.

  * SPI talking about they want to be the PayPal for FOSS makes me fear.
     
    IMHO what the community should try to work out is a way to avoid any
    cost to donations.

    John Sennesael is proposing the below implementation, which is known
    to work, requiring the resources exposed at:
     http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnuherds-app-dev/2008-12/msg00036.html

    The proposal under discussion is to work out a free of charge
    service, not a PayPal alike.  PayPal is a business.


  * SPI is a non-profit organization [2].  However it is not
    controlled by its users using the democratic policy [1].
    SPI is not even democratic!

      [1] http://gnuherds.org/charter#Decisions
          http://gnuherds.org/charter#Voting

      [2] http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/by-laws
          http://www.spi-inc.org/about-spi


However, MJ Ray could be right about the cost of managing a non-profit entity 
would be too much to realize it now.  So, if such cost is prohibitive we 
could propose the below experiment:

  Look for a trusted guy, (not me), to create a personal-bank-account to
  be used as the GNU Herds bank account.  Being she who administer
  the GNU Herds virtual bank service.

  Later, if it is needed, create the legal non-profit association and move
  the control of the GNU Herds bank account towards such legal association.


Of course, it is just my current personal opinion, and as usual, when we write 
we talk about proposals not decisions.

  http://gnuherds.org/charter#Decisions
  http://gnuherds.org/charter#Voting

--
This was an incomplete "SPI vs plain-bank-account" analysis.