[Freegis-list] it is now possible (not mandatory) to pay for the FreeGIS project

[Jan-Oliver Wagner]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2001 at 11:16:54AM -0700, Matt.Wilkie wrote:
> > We think it is a good idea to give users the opportunity
> > to pay low amount in a simple process for things they value
> > - if they wish.
> > I added this opportunity to FreeGIS now, see
> > http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html

we looked into several services and decided
that kagi is the best one for it allows
- payments in many ways (many credit cards, checks, even cash).
- anonymous payment (you don't need to register if you want to pay)
- Simple, fast and quite usable web pages

> PayPal is another easy method which I have used a couple of
> times. It can work well in situations where the recipient 
> doesn't have anything in place already to accept money.

For PayPal you need to register. I am also not sure
whether this is possible for anyone on our planet.

> For a voluntary payment model which seems to be working in the 
> music genre see http://fairtunes.com/. Incidentally, the 
> operators of FairTunes have no problems with non-musicians 
> being a recipient of their services -- a few micropayments have
> been directed to Linus Torvalds
> http://www.fairtunes.com/artistinfo.jsp?caller=url&artist=200095

Visa, PayPal, and E-Gold is not enough payment opportunities.

> One of the attractions of the FairTunes implementation is that
> payments can be as low as $0.25

Indeed, such low payments are desireful.
However, the Internet is yet not ready with adequate methods
for broad use. So we must stick to the world-wide standard
payment still being the credit card. Unfortunately charging
$0.25 would probably result in negative amounts due to the
usual (partly fixed) fees :-(

> Also see http://www.potlatch.net/

Low usability. The pages just don't allow me to find
answers quickly.

I expect that many services of this kind will be launched
and the exsiting ones will improve their usability/usefulness.
I am very excited to watch the developments.

Regards

	Jan

-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner               http://intevation.de/~jan/

Intevation GmbH	              	     http://intevation.de/
FreeGIS	                               http://freegis.org/