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@@ -2,61 +2,43 @@
title: Billing FAQ
---
-I am Drew DeVault, and I maintain sr.ht. You can reach me at any time, for any
-reason, via [sir@cmpwn.com](mailto:sir@cmpwn.com). If you have any questions
-about billing on sr.ht, please reach out.
+Sourcehut is a business, but it's also an open source project, made by people,
+and made for people. The maintainer is Drew DeVault, and you can reach him for
+any reason via [sir@cmpwn.com](mailto:sir@cmpwn.com). If you have any questions
+or concerns about billing on sourcehut, get in touch.
# Who has to pay for an account?
-In short, everyone who can afford to.
+You do not have to have a paid account to contribute to a project hosted on
+sourcehut. You can participate in tickets and discussions, send patches, and so
+on, without paying for your account. You can also do many of these things
+without signing up for an account at all; many services provide links to
+participate via email throughout the logged-out interface.
-SourceHut is currently under development, and during this phase, payment is
-optional. It helps to support the project, but we understand that you may have
-reservations about paying for an incomplete service. However, once the beta
-begins, payment will become mandatory for all maintainers.
+Maintainers who wish to host their own projects on sourcehut are expected to pay
+for their account. To create repositories, mailing lists, trackers, or submit
+build jobs, you will need to pay for your account.
-*Note: due to its high risk for abuse, submitting CI jobs will be limited to
-paid accounts in the near future. See [builds.sr.ht billing change
-planning](/ops/builds.sr.ht-migration.md) for details.*
-
-Note the difference between *maintainers* and *contributors*. Only the former
-is required to pay. In other words, if you host your project with us, you will
-be expected to have a paid account.
-
-**You will have to pay to**:
-
-- Set up bug trackers
-- Set up mailing lists
-- Host git or hg repositories
-- List your project on the hub
-- Submit CI builds
-
-And so on. However, we will **not** ask *contributors* to pay. You will always
-be able to register for a sr.ht account and participate in projects hosted with
-us without having to pay for your account. In fact, many of our features work
-without registering for an account at all.
-
-**You will NOT have to pay to**:
-
-- Submit bug reports
-- Send patches or questions
-- Browse or download software
-
-You do not have to register for an account at all to do these things; you can
-submit tickets and patches and so on with an unregistered email address.
+**Notice**: sourcehut is currently considered at an alpha stage of development,
+and the quality of the service may reflect that. However, the service is
+reliable, stable, secure, and mostly complete at this stage of development. To
+learn exactly what the alpha entails, consult this document. During the alpha,
+payment is encouraged, but optional, for most features.
# I'm not sure I can afford it.
-It is not our intention to price anyone out of using the service. If the minimum
-fees are too high for your financial needs, then you can simply [send us an
-email](mailto:sir@cmpwn.com) explaining your situation, and you will be issued
-free service, no questions asked. sr.ht users from many walks of life have been
-granted free service: students, users with issues using their currency of
-choice, people between jobs, and so on.
+SourceHut does not price any users out of the service.
+
+If the minimum fees are too high for your financial needs, then you can simply
+[send us an email](mailto:sir@cmpwn.com) explaining your situation, and you will
+be issued free service. sr.ht users from many walks of life have been granted
+free service: students, users with problems using their currency of choice,
+people between jobs, and so on.
-Users can also earn free service credits by contributing to sr.ht itself.
-SourceHut is a free and open source project itself, and each non-trivial patch
-you land in sr.ht earns you one month of free service.
+Users can also earn free service credits by contributing to sr.ht. SourceHut is
+a free and open source project itself, and each non-trivial patch you land in
+sr.ht earns you one month of free service. [Email us](mailto:sir@cmpwn.com) to
+redeem your free service credits.
[Read more about contributing to sr.ht here](/installation.md).
@@ -65,20 +47,19 @@ you land in sr.ht earns you one month of free service.
There is no difference between any of the plans: they all have access to the
same level of service, and the same service limits. You should choose whichever
plan best represents your financial ability and your level of investment in
-sr.ht. It's a kind of honor system: pay what you think the service is worth to
-you.
+sr.ht. It's an honor system: pay what you think the service is worth to you.
# Why should I pay when GitHub, GitLab, etc, are free?
Hosting these services is not free, or even cheap. The money has to come from
somewhere.
-Each of these companies is financially supported by venture capital, in the form
+Most other companies are financially supported by venture capital, in the form
of large investments from a small number of people. If you use their services
for free, or even if you pay the modest fees for their paid plans, they are not
-incentivized to serve you. They are bidden to their investors, and at their
-behest, they may implement changes you don't like: invasive tracking, selling
-your data, and so on.
+incentivized to serve your needs first. They are beholden to their investors,
+and at their behest, they may implement changes you don't like: invasive
+tracking, selling your data, and so on.
SourceHut has not accepted, and will never accept, any outside investments. Our
sole source of revenue is from sr.ht users making their account payments. This
@@ -92,8 +73,8 @@ license (aka AGPL 3.0). We incorporate changes from the community and work
together to build the best service possible. Your payment provides for the cost
of operations, keeping someone online to maintain the site, developing new
features, and providing reliable service. We promise to only invest our profits
-in free software or free culture efforts, and we already sponsor many such
-projects.
+in free software or free culture efforts, and in fact we already sponsor many
+such projects.
# Can I cancel or change my plan?
@@ -146,7 +127,7 @@ You can download invoices from the [billing page](https://meta.sr.ht/billing).
# Can I deploy sr.ht on my own infrastructure instead of paying for an account?
-Yep! [Here are instructions](https://man.sr.ht/installation.md).
+Yes. [Here are the instructions](https://man.sr.ht/installation.md).
# Do you offer paid support plans?