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Comment by degurechaff | Hacker News Reader

just curious, why asian people not eligible?

It's not that simple to do a bounty program, my uninformed guess is that they are almost definitely targeting a number of jurisdictions whose laws are familiar with and/or they have some kind of representive in

This is the correct answer (we run this bounty). Contests can be legally complex, there are only so many place we feel comfortable running it from a legal POV.

you can use Algora.io (it’s open source) to cover 120+ countries for the bounty payout - it would be a fantastic showcase on our website (founder here)

we can create a page for you like we did for the $25k Rust Prettier Bounty https://prettier.algora.io

lmk if interested ioannis@algora.io good luck!

It says nothing about "asian people". Verbatim quote, in full:

> The contest is open to individuals or teams of individuals who are legal residents or citizens of the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, New Zealand, or Australia.

Nationality, not ethnicity.

Turks are Asian. Russians are Asian. Indians are Asian. Etc.

They were probably just wondering why it's limited to Five Eyes + EU.

It'll likely be to do with financial responsibility due to where the funding comes from. They have an obligation to check that they are not sending funds to a terrorist group to solve code bounties, etc.

Then it should def be banned in america as the biggest terrorist nation on the planet

Interestingly if you follow through to the full T&C's [1], they add exclusions:

> ...not located in the following jurisdictions: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and the following areas of Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea.

Showing that the only explicit exclusions are aimed at the usual gang of comprehensively sanctioned states.

[1] https://www.memorysafety.org/rav1d-bounty-official-rules/

Still doesn't explain why the rest of the world isn't in the inclusions list. Maybe they don't want to deal with a language barrier by sticking to the Anglosphere... plus EU?

Maybe because the laws for giving away money are complicated? There’s tax and reporting burden

Actually, I'm more shocked that somehow Québec residents are eligible. Knowing how contest rules work, Québec is usually excluded because of its onerous rules. For one, the rules are not (also) written in French - which is a requirement for contests.

Those laws were repealed in late 2023.

Huh, thanks and noted. For those who are interested: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/general/quebec-scraps...

Probably legal and possibly political reasons that comes with the source of money.

As a resident of Japan, I thought the exact same thing. (I'm also a citizen of an EU country, which would permit me to participate, but most of my colleagues couldn't.)

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