[Qgis-psc] Bitcoins

[Vincent Picavet]

Hello,

> I have been suggested QGIS should accept Bitcoins. I do not know much about
> it, but apparently it offers the following pros:
> - more independence from commercial payment providers (PP here) to accept
> global payments
> - decentralised so free of censorship
> - encourage new communities to donate (BTC community here)
> - it is uncomplicated to support it (install client, create address, share
> address,collect money, ...)
> - show support/respect of another open project .
> 
> The money can be withdrawn with 1% overhead, or can be used for (sometimes
> weird) services:
> https://www.spendbitcoins.com/places/
> 
> I do not have a strong position, but it seems a good thing.

Bitcoin is really an interesting virtual money and a very convenient mean of 
payment, with low fees and strong confidence. Just scan a QR code ( or enter 
the recipient address) and validate the payment.

There are a few drawbacks though. The first one being the irreversibility of 
transactions. You just can not cancel a transaction launched. That should not 
be a real problem for QGIS as anonymity is not the reason why we would use 
bicoins and we can always do a reverse transaction.

The main problem is the volatility of the money. If you look at the 
bitcoin/USD exchange rate, you will see that variations are huge. It is 
therefore very difficult to fix any price in BTC, as its value varies too much.

If we'd want to fix a price in BTC (for standard donation e.g.), it should be 
dynamic and indexed on the USD/BTC rate (or EUR/BTC) and computed on the fly.
If it's used to do donations, let the amount free and let the user choose its 
donation according to current exchange rate.

There also is no guarantee on the future of bitcoin, which is considered an 
experimentation by its conceptors. It could be superseded by another virtual 
money, or attacked by governments, central banks, or payment agencies (visa, 
paypal...). DDOS on main transactions sites happen frequently too, and even 
cracking of these sites may arise (Mt.Gox, Bitcoin24x have been subject to 
attacks).

Therefore, accepting bitcoins means a bit of work to assure that the BTC will 
be withdrawn, and withdraw it when the rate is not bad, so as to eliminate the 
risks in keeping bitcoins.

As for simple payment options, Flattr is a good tool for opensource projects 
too.

Vincent