Bountysource decided to update their Terms of service today:
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If no Solution is accepted within two years after a Bounty is posted, then the Bounty will be withdrawn and the amount posted for the Bounty will be retained by Bountysource.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 If the Backer does not redeploy their Bounty by the deadline, the Bounty will be withdrawn and the amount posted for the Bounty will be retained by Bountysource.
For example: https://www.bountysource.com/issues/37463009-grouping-of-message-threads-threading-conversations
The issue is still open. If jolang does not contact the bountysource support to redeploy (I think that means to put the bounty to another issue) his bounty is retained by Bountysource.
Please make sure to redeploy your bounties to other issues. If you are unsure which one is good (=> with a high chance to be solved soon) feel free to ping the maintainers of the app.
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Let me try to give some more context.
We’ve been having major issues with Bountysource in the past. Most of them are technical ones because the Bountysource platform/website is so buggy. Often we could not get the tickets updated from Github. So when something is closed, the BS issue stayed open, making it impossible to claim anything. Moreover their Github tool broke ~2y ago and the sync from Bountysource to Github was not even remotely reliably. Hence tickets with bounties were not discoverable or the fact that a bounty was put on a ticket was not noticeable from Github.
I’ve been in close contact with BS support for a while. They (Johan) have been helpful in most cases so far. Like they refunded the inactivity fees charged while their product is broken.
As a possible exit strategy from the platform they offered me to give back the bounties to the backers and disable our tracker. I think this is the only sane solution.
We’re currently discussion what to do with the community money, like what I – as an employee of Nextcloud GmbH – claimed when I did my job and fixed issues or implemented new features. It will most likely flow into Nextcloud Include, our community support program. Then we can wisely spend the community money on community-related expenses.
I’ll try to update this topic once we know more.
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This is shady but so is the new Bountysource ToS. We could create a new issue that is relatively easy to solve and have our bounties transferred there. Then we solve it and donate the money to Nextcloud Include.
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Whoa!
Highly suspicious and dubious.
At least in Germany it would be against any law to change terms and conditions retroactive in that manner.
The only way to legally change such a thing (in Germany) would be from the day on the new terms and conditions would get valid… meaning… if ToS would get updated on July, 1st (e.g.) all bounties set after that date would be affected.
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Yes, by the lack of communication from their side I can only assume bad intentions.
Like as others on Twitter found out the 2 weeks of grace period perfectly aligns with the two weeks you have for backers to accept the claim.
Like if you were to quickly fix some stuff to claim the bounty before they get it and at least one of the backers does not react withing that time frame, the money is gone.
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As they refuse to get their postal address out you can’t even sue them (apparently they claim to be from California).
I’m no master in American Law (neither I am with German Law) but I doubt that this change would go well with US-Law.
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From Privacy Policy - Bountysource
Bountysource Inc.
548 Market Street #40189, San Francisco, CA 94104-5401
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darn this was the only place i wasn’t looking for the postal address… I would have expected it under ToS at first place. But thanks for that update.
This is really bad. I’ve put a lot of money in unresolved bounties.
I would want to move the bounty to another platform. @ChristophWurst, can you claim the bounty for “filtering of incoming messages” and move the money to another platform?
As per https://twitter.com/AllenRe97883617/status/1273140816618426368 bountysource said earlier (but then deleted their post on twitter) that it’s possible to ask for a refund by mail. That might be a option for you but still very sad. Issue still open and you have 10% less then before because of the withdrawal fee 
^ I got this on 2020-04-27. We might make use of this. Is there a chance that anyone is opposed to this?
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I understand we should stop bountysource salt payments, too?
I do not have any experience with that, but given how Bountysource is developing I would double and triple check if you want to hand your money to this organization.
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Well, no, but Nextcloud is not taking money any other way, except above-our-size Enterprise subscriptions.
Maybe if you activate your liberapay account’s ability to get money, or setup on another one (opencollective? github sponsors? flattr?)
Or just publish a bank account where we can send money?
Please, let’s stay productive. Of course there is also Nextcloud Enterprise but how is this related to community bounties?
Bounties have never and will most likely never be a way to pay Nextcloud Gmbh. The sole purpose of bounties is to connect people that want to contribute monetarily in the hope that someone from the community solves an issue (faster). This is about community. This has nothing to do with customers.
And in case this isn’t obvious: I can only speak for myself, not Nextcloud GmbH in general.
I wanted to solve this problem for Nextcloud Mail but apparently this has a wider impact.
Bountysource Salt also has nothing to do with “community bounties” “in the hope that someone solves the issue faster”, but are unconditional payments to support the development.
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Is BS Salt actually used for any Nextcloud project?
relevant issues:
Introduced in: https://github.com/bountysource/core/pull/1480
Some discussion in: https://github.com/bountysource/core/issues/1497
Update: They have just withdrawn the changes!
Reverted in: https://github.com/bountysource/core/pull/1498
I believe they should be met with extra caution in the future.
also, here is a list of issues with bounties that are related to the nextcloud organisation: https://www.bountysource.com/teams/nextcloud/issues a whopping $10.000
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