I’ve been using e/OS for a while and have it installed on two devices. Today I thought I’d contribute to the e foundation project and went to set up a monthly donation. However, I stopped because I got lost trying to understand where I was in the e foundation firmament when I was asked to become a member of Patreon.
I then went to give a lump sum and was dismayed to see that it runs through PayPal. I could have chosen to pay by card monthly but don’t have a PayPal account and don’t want one. Why isn’t there a simple donate link right at the top of the e foundation home page? (See the libreoffice page for a good example).
On a wider note, multiple brands and associated logins, (e community, murena, patreon), does not, IMHO, help the project.
These are all independent services. Obviously there are multiple logins. I don’t get the point here. Patreon is not even an associated brand. It is common usage to use well established services for a purpose. I f you want to get monetary support, use a donation/support service like Patreon. If you want to interact with users via forum, host a forum like discourse. Wthat is the alternative? Telling Patreon to enable Murena login? Building own services?
I believe that communication and branding should be easy to follow and understand. I know that donation/support services exist, (although Patreon portrays itself as “a new way to connect people making incredible things to the people who want to pay for them”), but I believe mainstream users would be more comfortable giving money directly to e Foundation. PayPal I try to avoid on principle.
Donate to murena.io ? That’s exactly the point I am trying to make, Murena is not e foundation. (Or is it?)
I am a big fan of e OS and try and spread the word whenever I can. I also realise that I can donate monthly by signing up to PayPal or to Patreon or by sending to Murena but my original point and the title of my post is - “too many brands”. KISS
“Donate with Debit or Credit Card” is processed by paypal as well…
… with no need for an account though… only that PP manages the credit-card payments as a service…
but if you really want to avoid PP that´s still not an option.
I can relate to @nickd 's critique as I browsed the options some time ago, searching for one with no “service in the middle” … I asked for bank details via mail and it went smoothly, quick answer … yet still I had the same question in my mind: why so complicated?
I agree. I dont see why there is no bank details to pay via bank transfer. Its obviously very easy to pay via patreon and/or PayPal but if you dont want to use their serveice and maybe dont have a credit card (I know lots of people who dont) there really seems no alternative.
E: Well, except crypto ofc I prefer Banking details as well tho.
Signal uses the Donorbox front end and Stripe for processing, I believe. In any event it’s simple and fast. I also think a donation facility from within the OS would be pretty cool.
Murena is a privately-held corporation, eFoundation is a non-profit organization, but the people behind it are basically the same. So the fact that you have to mail to murena.io is normal. (they obviously use their self-developed services )
I have already done this (last year) and then personally received mail from @GaelDuval with the bank transfer details of the e foundation.
I would feel rather differently about donating money to a privately held corporation and a non-profit… and I imagine that the taxman would to! So this ties back to the OP’s point about the confused branding, which I get, although I appreciate the need for different legal entities. I think that the introduction of ‘Murena’ was a tacit acknowledgement that /e/ was clunky and unusable for the wider public.vvGael’s mother/ elderly uncle/ child was always the ultimate target audience for eelo. This has added to the marketing hotchpotch. (There’s a good word for those using English as a foreign language!)
I’d support a transparent, simple and plain payment method that was not enriching Peter Thiel. Stripe seems good.
Also, why not just publish the IBAN details? Do you want to converse with the donors?
You are right about donating to a foundation rather than a privately held company. Murena is a limited company in France and I guess a way of leveraging the open source foundation work for profit in much the same way as any number of Linux projects.
So although the people behind the two structures might be the same, the actual structures are not. I would donate to a foundation but not to a privately held company. Unfortunately, when follow the “Select E foundation” link on the e.foundation homepage, you find yourself on a page the title of which is " e Foundation & Murena".
I just read this back and realise I am repeating myself… damn, I must be getting old.
Might be wortwhile considering clarification wherever appropriate that it´s always e.foundation who gets the money and avoid ambiguity by simply making that exact statement in plain text on the respective websites.
I understand “Murena” wants to be mentioned as well (see patreon-page), it may then be helpful to make concise statements about how Murena and e.foundation are interwoven and what their specific roles are in that journey.
And why not offering the IBAN of e.foundation directly on the website and thus make it as easy as possible for potential donors who like to choose bank transfer?
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