[Be Aware] Bountysource revising ToS. May jeopardize Syncthing bounties.

General
1

I’ll attach the emails here, along with the Nextcloud discussion thread. All of this happened about 48 hours ago, but revised ToS have been promised in their last email to donors.

Announced new Terms of Service. Unclaimed bounties 2 years old or more will be seized by bountysource itself. This would include the $5k bounty for e2e encryption on Syncthing and any others.

Click for: Terms of Service Update email

Hi,

You are receiving this email because we are updating the Bountysource Terms of Service, effective 1st July 2020.

What’s changing?

We have added a Time-Out clause to the Bounties section of the agreement:

2.13 Bounty Time-Out.

If no Solution is accepted within two years after a Bounty is posted, then the Bounty will be withdrawn and the amount posted for the Bounty will be retained by Bountysource. For Bounties posted before June 30, 2018, the Backer may redeploy their Bounty to a new Issue by contacting support@bountysource.com before July 1, 2020. If the Backer does not redeploy their Bounty by the deadline, the Bounty will be withdrawn and the amount posted for the Bounty will be retained by Bountysource.

You can read the full Terms of Service here

What do I need to do?

If you agree to the new terms, you don’t have to do anything.

If you have a bounty posted prior to June 30, 2018 that is not currently being solved, email us at support@bountysource.com to redeploy your bounty. Or, if you do not agree with the new terms, please discontinue using Bountysource.

Thanks for reading

Bountysource Team

Click for: Terms of Service withdrawn, revised ToS promised email

Hi

You’re receiving this because we updated our Terms of Service.

Withdrawal of new Terms of Service

Yesterday, we communicated a change to the Bountysource Terms of Service (ToS) agreement.

These changes have been withdrawn and the ToS reverted to its prior state.

The ToS will be revised and clarified in the future.

Thankyou

Bountysource Team

support@bountysource.com

2

We’ve seen this, but I don’t think we have any controls over this. The money is not ours, and we can’t “give back” the money.

A payout, in general, requires all people who chipped in money to accept the work, which by definition jeopardises the bounty from the point of view being possible to claim it.

I think I spent over 2 months claiming a bounty that was 10 or so backers for a hundred bucks or something.

I can’t imagine a 5 year old bounty with a lot more people being feasible to claim. (I can’t check now many backers now, bountysource seems mostly broken atm)

3

Actually have seen bounty claims going through fine. Marcel claimed a 2013 bounty two days ago without issue.

I didn’t actually click the approve button personally, but seemed to be claimed just fine regardless.

My hope is to raise awareness and provide more incentive for bountysource to continue supporting your work without claiming the donations for themselves. I’d argue the money is no more theirs than yours after fees, as it is set aside for people to claim who help your project.

Thanks for all you do either way. Cheers.

1 Like
4

FYI: the TOS revision was abandoned the following day, now it is back to the old version. … Bountysource sends email notices, I assume those of us that have used the “service” at one time were notified. … BTW: My money evaporated into the ozone a few years ago under the Old TOS… Burned once, never again!