I found the thread taffit is referring to here (18 months ago): http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20130330.130910.2a600f87.en.html
He was questioning the fees collected by Paypal. (Which are just under 3%). In the thread people did express a dislike for Paypal, but acknowledged that their fees are competitive with other fees we pay for online payment processing. It was also expressed that people didn't like that Paypal was the primary option, with an allowance only given for people who couldn't use Paypal. IE: To take advantage of the match one needed to use Paypal. Please note that an option option was added shortly thereafter for European Interbank transfers but, if memory serves, nobody take advantage of it. The use of Paypal in that particular case was for a matching drive for DC13, with a targeted dynamic progress bar, where if we didn't use Paypal, it would be practically improbable to do using another service in the timeframe with human resources we had available. It was very easy for Debian.ch, to implement and maintain, and no one volunteered to help with the harder work of integrating other options. In the current case, we are NOT talking about ONLY allowing Paypal, we are talking about adding an easy to use option, for those people who do use Paypal. For Paypal users, it will greatly streamline the donations process and increase follow through. I will also add that currently both Debian.ch and Debian.fr accept Paypal, and SPI passed a resolution to accept Paypal. [1] This is still to be implemented, but we should see some progress within a month or so. ffis also accepts paypal as well. [2] So basically all of Debian's Trusted Orgs either accept or plan to accept Paypal payments. Using SPI's Paypal account, in the future, will have one additional advantage beyond US tax deductibility. Because SPI is a 501c3 non-profit, paypal provides a discounted rate of 2.2%. This is really a great rate and the only way to get significantly lower, is to use european wire transfers, which isn't really an option in the US, or to use paper checks which are quite the opposite of easy. I and many of the other people who are working on fundraising understand that some people don't like Paypal. Some of us also don't like Paypal, but view it as a useful and necessary tool for our jobs of raising money for Debian. At the end of the day ALL these banking services are proprietary services that we need to integrate with to accept donations. Paypal, like all the services we use, does not require us to use proprietary libraries or protocols to interface with them. I'll close on one note, for the donations page we are working on we want ALL options listed. We also want to make to make the process as painless as possible for our benefactors, so would prioritize those options that are the simplest. If people don't like Paypal they don't have to use it, as it won't even be the first option listed. -Brian [1] - http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/2013/2013-12-12.mcs.1/ [2] - http://www.ffis.de/News/Spenden-jetzt-auch-mit-PayPal-m-glich-5.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-www-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/cacfairxir7cqnjckphunk4hkdm9jf1x_d1bliyt7txpxty-...@mail.gmail.com
