Consider alternative to bountysource

[ghost]

Have you checked borgbackup docs, FAQ, and open Github issues?

Yes

Is this a BUG / ISSUE report or a QUESTION?

Question

Describe the problem you're observing.

To no one's surprise, I've filed my bountysource cash out Jul 1 and it still hasn't been processed. Other people are having the same issue: bountysource/core#1539. It is unfeasible and a barrier to contributors to do any sort of bountysource work due to the timescale (30 minutes of work, but having to wait a week and a half to actually be able to cash out, and then no guaranteed of even being paid). Other projects have jumped ship after the bountysource ToS change and I understand this project also understands bountysource sucks, but I think it would be good now to consider an alternative.

Here's one I found (have not evaluated it): https://gitpay.me/

https://gitpay.me is an open-source alternative to BountySource, and there's no fee for bounties unclaimed and the fee is lower (8% for Open Source projects), and for the contributor, the money is sent directly, with no withdraw.

[ThomasWaldmann]

BountySource worked in the past (although not as good / stable as one would wish). I got payments from them in the past.

So let's hope this is a temporary issue and they fix their payments processing.

I'll have a look at gitpay.me. Also see #5674.

[m3nu]

Not good. We looked into moving to Github sponsors and Open Collective a while ago (#5674), but they aren't set up for EU companies yet.

[ghost]

It's been 2 weeks and support not responding. Any way I can get compensated in the meantime? I normally wouldn't be this pushy, but in today's climate any source of income is imperative for me.

[ThomasWaldmann]

@remyabel i checked on twitter. others are complaining about same issue, too.

@bountysource announced they had some change in management, so hopefully they get their stuff sorted.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Just to be up-to-date, I also requested a payout at bountysource right now, let's see.

[m3nu]

It's been 2 weeks and support not responding. Any way I can get compensated in the meantime? I normally wouldn't be this pushy, but in today's climate any source of income is imperative for me.

Worst case, if nothing moves at all with Bountysource, I can do a chargeback of previous donations done via Paypal for the last 6 months. That could free about $1k if approved by PayPal. It's approved by default if Bountysource doesn't respond.

For now let's hope for the best. They seem to have a team/owner change: https://twitter.com/Bountysource/status/1412078433094537219

[ThomasWaldmann]

@remyabel I got a response on twitter

@borgbackup please contact me on nleherissier @ theblockchain - group . com and I'll fix it asap.

So I did that and pointed to the 2 currently known pending payouts (remyabel and me).

If anybody else is waiting, speak up in a comment below.

[ghost]

Awesome, thank you both of you for the professionalism. I don't have twitter so thank you for doing that.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Nothing related received from them on my paypal either.

Note: just contacted above mentioned email address pointing to here.

[ghost]

Yeah I give up on bounty source. Took them a month to process the cash out, they take weeks to respond to each individual e-mail and PayPal decided to put the payment on hold because I'm a new seller (because of the way bountysource is sending the payments?) I told them they should receive a confirmation e-mail to expedite the payment and it's been 4 days. Either they are really disorganized or making people wait on purpose, I have no patience anymore.

[m3nu]

Yeah, I stopped sending to Bountysource in June or so. Any viable alternative yet? Liberapay seems already setup? Open Collective also sounded good, but their integration with GH Sponsors is very new.

[ghost]

Seems there's some degree of renewed effort from BountySource. I'm going to see if I can get my last payout. Maybe worth trying to finish some more bounties if it works out.

[ghost]

I've given up on BountySource. I posted an issue in their website repository so others can know the current situation. I just thought I'd give them a final chance to make things right.

@ThomasWaldmann I'd be willing to work on more of the issues here if we could make some arrangement where I could get paid. This is one of the better projects I've closed issues for before. I wouldn't mind doing more of that.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Currently, the only active/proven alternative to bountysource we have at the organisation level is liberapay (besides a developer directly getting paid by some sponsor, which is not going over any borgbackup related organisation).

Due to the way how LP works, it is primarily for frequent contributors who could receive a specific take of what's incoming there (which isn't very much currently at about 120 EUR/w).

https://liberapay.com/borgbackup/

[ThomasWaldmann]

BTW, I've just requested ASAP cashout from bountysource via email (which sucks, they should be able to just query their DB and payout whatever is overdue). Let's see if it helps.

[ghost]

Not a bad idea. I've been reviewing the source and it seems to already be pretty well put together. My main background to date has been writing C programs but it seems like you already have done some work to offload performance critical code to C libraries. Is that still an area needing work?

[ThomasWaldmann]

The next thing needing fixing at the C level is to fix compiler warnings, see the open tickets / the milestones.
There's also an open hashtable optimisation ticket, but this needs a lot of carefulness and benchmarking.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Just advertised LiberaPay for borgbackup via Twitter / Mastodon, let's see if it helps.

[ThomasWaldmann]

News: after writing an email to their support, i have received all 3 pending bountysource cashout payments via paypal today, finally! :-)

[ThomasWaldmann]

@abebeos from my paypal account (these cashouts were overdue since months, see #5900 (comment) ):

28.02.2022 | Zahlung von Bountysource Inc. Abgeschlossen | 40,00 USD
28.02.2022 | Zahlung von Bountysource Inc. Abgeschlossen | 90,00 USD
28.02.2022 | Zahlung von Bountysource Inc. Abgeschlossen | 225,00 USD

[ThomasWaldmann]

@abebeos Not yet. Next thing I need to do is trying to fix github sponsors via OpenCollective Europe. #5674

[ThomasWaldmann]

Now it shows me the payouts that they already did (see #5900 (comment) ) as "pending" again on the bountysource UI.

WTF, how hard can it be?

[ThomasWaldmann]

Could get interesting if next time we ask them "can you please process all still pending payouts". :-)

[ThomasWaldmann]

Good news: quickly got my latest cashout (~ 1000 USD) from bountysource. Looks like things improve there.

Bad news: borgbackup organisation's fund are down close to zero, so I can't create new bounties until new organisation funds are coming in via donations from borgbackup users.

[ghost]

Is BountySource still the best option for future bounties? I think that needs to be answered before more is put into the system. I still have my doubts about the longevity of the platform.

[ThomasWaldmann]

@braewoods yeah, "me too".

Liberapay is a good alternative, but works a bit differently. It is good for regular contributors who agree to just get their appropriate share of the incoming funds.

Bountysource is better for one or few time contributors, who just solve one or a few bounties.

[m3nu]

I can send the next batch of funds to Bountysource, if you are comfortable. Avoided them after last year's mess.

[ThomasWaldmann]

@m3nu yes, we can try that. if they mess up again, we can stop again.

[bountysource-support]

Hello Bountysource community,

All cash outs are being processed so you will get your cash quickly.

The pending status does not affect payment.

If you have any inputs you would like to share do not hesitate as it is essential to us.

Fill the form at: https://bountysource.com/contact-us/

Thank you

[bountysource-support]

Thank you @abebeos for your kind words, we are happy to hear you are satisfied.

[fantasya-pbem]

Just wanted to tell that Bountysource has payed out a bounty to my PayPal account. I didn't experience any problems lately.

[bountysource-support]

@fantasya-pbem thank you for your kind words, we are happy to hear that you are satisfied with our services.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Just made some new bounties for some maintenance stuff, let's see how they go.

borgbackup org's bountysource funds now at 0.

[ThomasWaldmann]

My cashout request of May 8 is still pending, just wrote a support email requesting it to get processed.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Looks like app.bountysource.com is offline and there has been reports that they stopped payouts months ago. Crap. :-(

For now, I removed any references to BS from our docs.

[ghost]

Looks like app.bountysource.com is offline and there has been reports that they stopped payouts months ago. Crap. :-(

For now, I removed any references to BS from our docs.

Is GitHub's system any good for one off bounty payments?

[ghost]

I recently came across an alternative called Algora that I saw being used across GitHub that may be a viable alternative to test a few bounties on: https://github.com/algora-io

[ThomasWaldmann]

https://console.algora.io/pricing 19% for them and 4% for stripe, so a 100 USD bounty becomes 123 USD.

It sounds a bit like bounty money is collected from donor after the bounty goals were reached and the solution was accepted. Guess that requires less trust in algora, but more in the donor.

[ghost]

I see. So their fees are higher than BountySource was but a system that is too unreliable is useless no matter what its fees are. Are there any better options then?

[BitcoinBrief]

Resolvr is a BountySource alternative that is being built right now for a hackathon and needs alpha testers!

Resolvr is a decentralized bounty board that will use noncustodial escrow and crowdsourced juries to determine if bounties have been fulfilled.

Centralized bounty boards like BountySource all suffer from risk of exit scams/insolvency. And without escrow each bounty taker must trust the bounty maker. Resolvr is aiming to solve these problems.

Go sign up and help build a strong bounty platform designed for the open-source community! Let the team know what you think.

[pktiuk]

https://polar.sh/ may be interesting alternative (which is supported by GitHub and is well integrated)

[ThomasWaldmann]

I removed the bountysource label, in 2023 their parent company went bankrupt. :-(

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bountysource