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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like they're just taking existing bounty money for themselves. Only if your bounty is from before 2018, you can only redeploy it, and not get your money back. Any bounty from between 2018 and today is just lost if it doesn't get claimed within 2 years. Future bounties probably won't be on this platform.

Sounds like a quick money grab while destroying your brand. Were they recently bought by a hedge fund or something?

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They were actually acquired by a crypto startup:

https://coscout.com/organization/canya.io

Seems a bit shady if you ask me. Looks like the founder has also moved on (as per linkedin). So yeah, this just looks like a cash grab.

Source on linkedin? I can't seem to find the company listing.

Welp, looks like it was removed? I'm not sure what's going on here..

The plot thickens.

I really wish there was a non-black-mirror way to throw a couple bucks towards putting a bounty on someones head. Doesn't have to be murder or anything. Maybe just wreck their cars and break a wrist or something.

Literally just any repercussions at all for being like this would be a nice change of pace.

That's the most nonsensical idea I've heard from a non-politician in recent memory (apologies if I have made an incorrect assumption about your employment).

What we have instead of terrible ideas like this, are laws. Unfortunately these are often designed by the same nonsensemongers mentioned above, but they are the only reasonable recourse.

> the only reasonable recourse

Good ideas don't start off fully formed. I'm talking about the desire to have a bottom up justice system. The fact that anger is the impetus means there is a lot of potential for a slippery slope, and I cede that.

But the point stands: there are many people who've reaped nothing but benefits from being horrible, and I would gladly pitch a couple bucks to make their life miserable for a while.

If you could pitch in a couple bucks to make their life miserable for a little while, they could finance a campaign to make your life miserable for a long time.

Laws are the only reasonable recourse. They may have better access to laws and legal maneuverings, of course.

But you're measuring things incorrectly, I think. You write:

> there are many people who've reaped nothing but benefits from being horrible

Nope. They've reaped what they've sown, and they are horrible people. They might be rich or powerful, but who really cares?

> They might be rich or powerful, but who really cares?

You think they were having a bad time on Epstien's island? You really think they're so unhappy about being horrible?

So... your idea to punish rich assholes is to implement a system where you can pay money to make people miserable. Do you see the glaring flaw in this plan?

> a bottom up justice system.

Also known as "lynch mob".

Decisions based on spite are still a bad idea. Of course this kind of cash grab should be illegal, and I really hope this case will go to trial, but justice is best dealt out without passion.

The emotional basis has a lot of influence, and is a problem regardless of emotion. But we are human. It's only through working together we can find what is and is not simply emotional by seeking the overlap.

It makes sense to have some expiry. Else you can be left holding hundreds of thousands of dollars of people's money that will never return, forever, which really complicates your finances.

Your own bank has clauses like this btw. I had to fight for my funds in a bank account I hadn't touched in seven years. And I once used a pay-as-you-go phone service that would consume your balance if you went 6 months without depositing.

But two years seems way too aggressive for this sort of project.

> It makes sense to have some expiry. Else you can be left holding hundreds of thousands of dollars of people's money that will never return, forever, which really complicates your finances.

There's a pretty simple answer here: return it to the person who posted the bounty. Other options could be letting them donate it (minus standard fees) to the maintainer(s) of the project that their bounty applied to or to an OSS organization.

The choices aren't just "Hold on to it forever" and "Take it for Bountysource." It's on the books as a liability for a reason, namely, it's not Bountysource's money.

(There's also an entire ecosystem for unclaimed property, which is where banks distribute money from customers they can't locate: https://unclaimed.org/)

Returning it to the person who posted it may not be possible - card expired, can't get in touch with them etc.

So, because it may not be possible in what is legitimately a small minority of cases, it should never be done in any case?

Plus there's actually a way to deal with that- California operates an unclaimed funds/property division that companies are supposed to hand money over to if they don't have the right to it. My wife actually found out that she was owed money from a previous medical provider who overcharged her- just had to fill out some forms.

You can't just steal people's money because it's inconvenient to return it to them.

https://www.sco.ca.gov/upd_msg.html

Every state does this. It’s called escheatment.

That's a reasonable point, but they could have addressed it without keeping everyone's money. People would be a lot less upset if you had a 30-day grace period to claim a refund whenever a bounty expired, and only forfeit it if you ignored that. But they didn't do that, and are keeping everyone's money even when returning it is possible.

Even in that case, in certain jurisdictions you are required to send the money to the government in a process called 'escheatment'. If the person comes back looking for their money after that point then they have to go to the state and prove that it is theirs in order to get it returned.

This is an interesting problem that ruined a side project I worked on. I wanted to avoid forcing people to pay monthly subscription fees so instead I let them buy "credits" and pay as they go. Unfortunately many people bought credits and then disappeared after using the product a couple of times, leaving my company with thousands of dollars we were actually holding on behalf of our customers. My accountants informed me that even though we have that money in the bank it's not really "ours," and we can't even find a lot of these people in order to refund them.

I'm not saying that what BountySource is doing is justified. In my case I need to just wind down the company because I think it would be unethical to pull this shit.

That is why you should "sell" the credits, so the money belongs to you, I think.

The money belongs to you, but the credits belong to the customer. If you were selling cakes, and customers hold 1000 credits, you must hold on to enough money to buy the flour for those cakes, so to speak.

California banks must follow escheatment to pass this to the state where it will be kept for you. So as a California resident this is what I'd want. I used BountySource to help out Neovim. I won't use it again.

Thanks, guys, for bringing this to my attention.

> Else you can be left holding hundreds of thousands of dollars of people's money that will never return, forever, which really complicates your finances.

An entire legal framework already exists for just this scenario, and it doesn't involve pocketing the money.

Money and other assets are supposed to be relinquished to the state so that owner or intended recipient can collect it.

Two years could even be acceptable, but these are terms you need to specify up front. It's changing the terms on money that they already hold, that's the dirty part about this.

Some expiry yes but 2 years sounds to aggressive. Either 3 years or only for bounties where there has been really no activity at all after 2 years.

They were acquired by CanYa in 2017. Looks like CanYa is a crypto startup?

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/canya#section-overvi...

A crypto startup doing shady things that are flirting with fraud? Why never...

Maybe it's time for a browser extension that just tracks a list of crypto companies and warns you anytime their name appears on a page.

My partner is the Grants Manager for a UK charity. It is a large ongoing hassle for them having funds marked for specific purposes with no expiry that they can't spend. There is a mechanism there where they can apply to the Charity Commission but it's a painful process (this is on purpose).

There is no such recourse in this case so the idea makes perfect sense to me. Two years is the only bit I have an issue with - 5 would be a bit more reasonable.

If the problem is truly to avoid holding a liability then donating the money to a charity, tech-related non-profit such as the EFF, or even redistributing it across all of the other active bounties (that are actually likely to be paid out) would be much better.

What they're doing here is just a scummy cash-grab, and I am not sure how legal it is considering it applies retroactively.

Hm strange, A bit unlike Bountysource. It would make more sense if it was before 2018 and there has been no activity on the bounty/issue and even then they should offer redeploy or refund

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