When this issue of paypal / payment processors crops up from time to time (normally when PayPal screw up for some reason) I often wonder whether the difficulty in finding an alternative is actually symptomatic of Ardour’s sometimes slightly ambiguous business model.
For example, as I understand it, you can donate - which is a voluntary contribution to support the development, but there are also options such as unrestricted pre-built Ardour binaries which are not available unless you pay something? (and a donation doesn’t count?)
I’m not a lawyer, and definitely not a tax lawyer, but if something is only available on submission of a payment (or even if its only available on submission of a donation) surely that makes it a purchase rather than a donation (i.e. given voluntarily without the expectation of anything in return).
Therefore, it might be worth looking at payment processors who offer a complete online solution for purchasing non-tangible goods. They will also help with other obligations you may have such as sales taxes (for example, unless the rules have changed, certainly in the UK where I am based I believe that when you make a sale to a customer in the EU, the VAT / sales tax is due at the rate in the customer’s location - not that of the vendor, and must be collected and remitted to the appropriate authorities as required.
Clearly this would be an administrative nightmare for a small business selling into many different countries, so the only way to do this effectively and efficiently is via a third-party processor (as the merchant of record).
I use Paddle I’m not affiliated to them in any way and I only cite them as a typical example which has worked well for my use case.
Typically they handle delivery of download links, or activation codes, secure payment processing - in a variety of ways including bank / wire transfer, credit cards, Apple Pay and yes PayPal… and almost every currency imaginable. They have a comprehensive API and documentation and I believe they can also handle subscription based models too. Others are available - perhaps it would be worth reviewing whether they or a similar provider would now be a better fit for Ardour’s requirements?
You’re way off base here. But the “a” and “x” keys of my keyboard are broken, so typing more right now is painful. Almost everything you’ve written here is wrong or not relevant.
“I’m not a lawyer, and definitely not a tax lawyer, but if something is only available on submission of a payment (or even if its only available on submission of a donation) surely that makes it a purchase rather than a donation (i.e. given voluntarily without the expectation of anything in return).”
I am neither as well, but I don’t follow what you are suggesting. Do you think it may be illegal for people to donate to the Ardour project without receiving a copy of the binary in return? Why would that be the case? If the person wants a copy of the binary, they can pay the exact same amount as a payment instead of a donation and receive one. In America at least, people can choose to give their money away to an organization without the organization being obligated to provide something in return.
A donation should be given without expecting anything in return.
If you “have” to donate to be able to get a pre-built binary, then it isn’t a donation it’s a payment. It doesn’t matter that you call it a donation; if it walks like a duck …The important bit is that you get something in return for handing over some money.
Following on from that, the suggestion was that the complexities of managing the receiving international payments might be alleviated by using a third party, as an alternative to managing it yourself and only using PayPal. It’s a reasonable suggestion to a tricky problem.
The illegal bit is that if you take a payment, in many territories you do have a legal obligation to collect and pay appropriate taxes to the appropriate authority. The EU example was sited.
Whether this is relevant to Ardour or not, I simply don’t know.
“If you “have” to donate to be able to get a pre-built binary, then it isn’t a donation it’s a payment. It doesn’t matter that you call it a donation; if it walks like a duck …The important bit is that you get something in return for handing over some money.”
The payment system and the donation system are completely separate, which is explained in the FAQ page. You have to pay, not donate, to get a pre-built binary. A donation does NOT provide you a copy of the binary. Nowhere on this site is a payment in exchange for a binary referred to as a donation. It is called a purchase.
Also, ardour.org has no presence of any kind within any jurisdiction other than New Mexico USA. Consequently EU (or other jurisdictional) rules don’t matter.
Finally, the web site and even the basic concept behind our collection of money is 100% based on the idea of providing a service (that of building the software for you). As a result of that, it is not subject to VAT within the UK or the EU (unless the law has changed in the last few years). Nobody is paying for the software - that is available (as source code) without charge to anyone at all times.
I wasn’t suggesting anything was wrong at all - it’s entirely appropriate that people can donate if they want to, and there’s no obligation to provide, or probably even any expectation of, anything in return - to my understanding that’s always been the very definition of a donation - freely given.
But Ardour has a combination of donation model - purely to support the project, and also a payment model for the binary version. I guess the subtlety which I missed is that this appears to be expressed as the ‘service of providing a binary’ unless I’m misunderstanding Paul’s reply.
Its entirely the developers choice to run the project as they see fit and I don’t suggest there is anything improper in that. All I was suggesting was something which worked for me - and might be worth considering. If that doesn’t suit ardour’s business model then a different solution is required.
Hopefully this will remain a place where money is not talked about too much. I would still like to imagine that all Linux(opensource) people are friends with each other. I pay Ardour a small amount every month even though I mainly use Mixbus32C. I also donate a little to AvLinux Glen every month. The amounts are not large. Micropayments should be easy and safe to use. And to be free from all kinds of political and ideological harm. I have also bought all of Mike’s plugins. Be kind to each other, Santa will thank you at Christmas. The purpose is probably to develop Ardour better every day.
Are you sure? I thought PayPal was just one of the options patrons could use if they choose to. The point being they also support Credit Cards, Apple Pay etc etc. I just thought it might be less administrative work for you and more flexible for subscribers to manage their subscriptions.
I believe that is actually a change from what it used to be. Not sure when the change happened, but they used to use Paypal for all payment processing (Including credit cards in a similar fashion to how ardour.org uses it), and you had to have Paypal to pay out from Patreon to the supported project. I believe now you have more options, and unlike previously I do not believe they use Paypal under the hood for all of them anymore.
I also do not understand how people get upset at Paypal but have no issues with having a bank account at ING, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Commerzbank, ABN AMRO.
You can literally just type “<any bank name> scandal” into a web search engine…
and most search results do not even include the bailouts during the 2008 crisis.
I do not want to defend Paypal, but simply point out even the alternatives are just more of the same.
All I know, from a personal perspective, is it’s a shame the Ardour team doesn’t offer an alternative. I thought multiple times this week about either donating, paying a one-off for v7 or subscribing but then I remembered I couldn’t.
Ardour is set apart because of it’s ethical license etc so why not pick a more ethical payment system even if at the expense of a little less income due to fees? I’m sure users would gladly pay a little more to offset this.
And, as a side note, I’m sorry @mike3 that you are being spoken to the way you are here on this forum. You’ve raised great points about plugin window closing, payment systems and more. It behooves the admin to think more carefully about their choice of words and reactions to honest feedback and discussion.
Probably this question should be framed a bit otherwise to keep perspective.
So suppose now that in the country you live the government decides go on a way that you dislike, politicians engage in mischief and makes you baffled and disillusioned. Now, what other truly better countries (or planets) are there to choose to feasibly relocate to? Will you seriously think in relocating to another country? Probably not, and you will live with the mess, because at the end that mess is still much better and still not that worse than in any other countries, or just the relocating is beyond your means – and you can still enjoy and appreciate your life and other gifts given to you with faith, or even without faith.
Probably the option you dislike from one point of view may show up still the best after weighting up everything.
(At the end you can’t relocate from planet Earth, so you have to look for other solutions to correct the system.)
