[Mageia-discuss] keep on donate or AUFML full transparency

[Michael Scherer]

Le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à 01:00 +0200, Per Øyvind Karlsen a écrit :
> 2010/9/29 Olivier Méjean <omejean at yahoo.fr>:
> > Hello there !!
> >
> > Following my previous news about donation, on friday, let's refresh them !
> >
> > About paypal, you may have noticed that our paypal account has been limited.
> > Yes, guys, it was your fault !!! You were so in hurry to give to mageia
> > project that paypal asked us some informations. I phoned paypal, i sent paypal
> > many documents, our vice-treasurer's phoned paypal and yesterday we were
> > pleased to know that our paypal account was verified so no more limitation, we
> > can overtake the limit of 2000€, and it is overtaken.
> >
> > While talking about paypal, you know that paypal take a commission on each
> > donation. A the moment, donations arise at 2972.79€ but commission removed the
> > donations are 2851.9€, a bit more than 4% of commission (well the real
> > commission of a fixed amount plus a percentage of the amount). Donations using
> > paypal are ranging from 3 to 500€
> >
> > Bank transfert allows to get 1810€ and bank check 75€, to give 4736.9€
> >
> >
> > The announcement is translated into 10 languages, good job but i guess Maât,
> > who's in charge of the page, is underemployed so let's get him some nice job
> > by adding new languages! For example, what about greek , finnish, swedish (or
> > norvegian?), russian, chinese, serbian announcements? Yes !! So translators,
> > have a look at http://donate.mageia.org/ translate it and send it and Maât
> > will be very happy to add new languages. Oh by the way, if there is another
> > language I did not talk about, feel free to translate too! To end with, Maât
> > you are really a nice guy ;-), dear members of Mageia don't forget to
> > congratulate him, he likes it :þ
> >
> > We are still waiting for the creation of Mageia association and the bank
> > account to give the donations to Mageia. I guess it will take some days, but
> > no problem for us, we will still be happy to help receiving donations.
> >
> > I was about to forget, as Maât said in a previous mail, « Mageia IS definetely
> > the answer to the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life,
> > The Universe, and Everything »
> >
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything#Answer_to_the_Ultimate_Question_of_Life.2C_the_Universe_and_Everything_.2842.29>
> >
> > <http://download.tuxfamily.org/cooker/mageia/stats/Capture-
> > DonationMageia424242.png>
> >
> > I stop here, next step 10,000€ ? Ok ?
> >
> >
> > --
> > Olivier Méjean
> > Président de l'Association des Utilisateurs Francophones de Mandriva Linux
> > http://mandrivafr.org
> > twitter : obagoom
> > identi.ca : goom
> >
> *cough*
> 
> Not that I'll expect anything but  heavy flaming, lotsa hostility and
> not really that much of a reward coming out of it, but I can't help
> but raising a question..

Well, I hope that you would not be too much flamed, because that's not
exactly what I would love to see here. So if people respond, please be
courteous :)

> Isn't it rather kinda questionable and odd to expect of people, and
> for people to donate to an organization that's not established yet,
> nor any common goals, objectivies or any discussions concerning it or
> even knowledge about who's involved in such discussions?
> I personally would feel uncomfortable starting to raise funds and
> accept donations from people who don't even really know whether what
> they're actually supporting will become what they want it to or not..
> But maybe I'm just biased and not being objective expecting something
> with at least not worse communication and without even the certain
> degree of transparency and knowledge guaranteed by a public company
> such as Mandriva..?

You are right, but I think that people who give have faith in the
project. And while I am biased, I think they are right. 

I also think people are able to decide by themselves who to trust, we
didn't do a big campaign "give us money or we will die" style, and we
were the first one to be astonished by the overwhelming reaction of the
community following us. In fact, and as I said in the past, this stress
me a little to see how much hope people put in us to organize
everything. I feel lot of pressure to do everything right from the start
on my part.

I could perfectly understand that people would wait to give anything,
and in fact, I hope that I am not the only one to think like that ( but
thanks god, it seems that I am not ). 

But if anybody has any questions, the previous week have show that we
will answer to them. Maybe we could have done like the LibreOffice fork,
preparing everything and then announce, but we decided to be transparent
as soon as possible, even if this make us look like vaporware in the
first day. 

-- 
Michael Scherer