OpenHAB foundation membership

Hi,

I would like to support the foundation but when I follow the path to join I find I have to send a bank mandate.

This puts me off a bit.

If you are not a member is this a factor in why you have not become a member? Does it also put you off?

And to the voting members on here. Why is it not possible to pay year by year using a payment gateway when you are in a country that supports the banking mandate. Possibly even crypto?

BTW It is more that I hate the global clearing banks cartel and would like to see the end of it more than anything else. I hate anti competition clubs that lock out innovation and competition. In doing so make unfair profits out of people by removing choice. Just a true free market person nothing else.

Hi Rob,
as the CFO of openHAB Foundation, please let me answer your questions.

openHAB Foundations is run by volunteers, so we have to keep the effort as low as possible.
To follow this, we have chosen just three payment methods:
SEPA direct debit [preferred way]
PayPal [if you are not in a country of the SEPA region, e.g. USA]
SEPA payment for organisations.

Having more payment options, we (in fact just me) could not handle the accounting job besides day work.

Best Hans-JĂśrg

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Firstly thanks for the good work and the extremely quick reply.

Sadly I see your point of view so will have to prop up the cartel of the global banking system yet again if I want to become a member.

Hopefully at some point governments will step in properly and break the grip of those banks or possibly technology will win and it will become as easy to use other methods but the long legacy will take some breaking.

Thanks for your application :wink:

I do mind the global bank cartels as well, but I doubt there is anything to do about it. Banks have a huge power and inpact on every community and almost every country. Without banks the world would look very different, and probably for the worse.
What I do mind most though, is to pass on my bank account informations they way openhab foundation is asking for it. But I understand and accept the reasons which is why I chosen to fill in the formular and just send it a few minutes ago. I would have prefare to use Paypal or something simular insted. But thats wasn´t an option, unfortunatly.
What I did is to use an extra bank account, which means it´s not my main bank account. This is a limited bank account which means, (I have an oppotunity to add/delete extra accounts in my online banking). I just have to add some money covering the yearly fee to pay for the membership. If something goes wrong and the info ends up in the wrong hands, the damage will be very limited, and I can close it in a few seconds.

Thank’s for your application Kim.
I can clearly understand your fears about sending those details via email.
We will discuss this in our next board meeting to find a way to send applications on a safer way…

Best
Hans-JĂśrg

That would be great…
I did look at a way to send a secure and crypted (password) email through Gmail. It´s possible, but one still have to send the password some way as well. So it´ll end up the same I guess.
I hope you´ll finde a way.

As Hans put his face behind the organisation I also took the risk. Guess we are the two latest people to cough up in the name of a good cause.

As you are GDPR aware I am sure you will handle my data with care. I would hate the foundation to waste a load of money paying fines.

You can be asured that we handle your data with care.:slightly_smiling_face:

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The “best” way (for now) to send encrypted emails using Gmail is PGP. There are many browser plugins (I use Mailvelope). This uses public key crypto so you share your public key, which isn’t sensitive, to verify that you sent the message (email signature). You use the public key from who you are sending it to to encrypt the message. Only those who posses the private key can decrypt it so the message is only decryptable by the recipient (so long as they keep their private key protected).

The foundation could create a key pair and put the public key on their website and/or publish it in one of the many public key repositories and you would use that to encrypt the message you send to the foundation. But it requires the use of browser plugins and third party tools and such which will be awkward and hard to expect from average joe users. I routinely use Mailvelope (OpenKeychain on my Android) to exchange sensitive messages with family and friends all the time, sometimes texts too. But it is awkward to set up and not super intuitive to use.

It’s an option but I don’t think it can be the option for the foundation.

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I have trust.

You know it was a blocker for two of us due to security and the limited options. I totally understand Hans’s issue but this is an automation platform. Sad if the foundation can not automate as it grows.

While I was just about to send my foundation membership application form, I noticed this thread.
Personally, I’m not really concerned about any abuse or theft. And if push comes to shove, at least with my (Dutch) bank, I can just ‘correct’ any false SEPA payment online in an instant.

But, I can understand the concerns and this ‘sending a form via email’ is soooo 2005 anyway… :sunglasses:. Of course the comments from @hmerk are completely understandable.

Online payment services like Stripe are not cheap either. And Bitcoins are not for everyone. So, to please everyone would mean to give multiple options which comes at a price in both money and effort.

Anyway, my application will be on the mail after scanning the signed document and having a good espresso from my not (yet ) connected coffee machine!

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Automation requires people to create the automations. At this time, Hans is on his own. Whose going to create the automation?

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and I can’t even find time to debug an issue with the zwave binding. I get it and that is why I said as it grows. And I hope it will which is why I am supporting.

are you mad that is the first thing I migrated across. Stop posting and go and connect it up. It has to be the top priority.

:grin: You’re absolutely right. I will send the form and than go hack the bluetooth based communication! :rofl:

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Thats not the way to go then… If it´s too much hassle, people wont be using it anyway.

With Hans on his own, this is not going to change. But perhaps when things settle for the openhab 2.5 (or openhab 3.0), there may be some spare time to look into another solution.