The foaf:tipjar property relates an foaf:Agent
to a foaf:Document that describes some mechanisms for
paying or otherwise rewarding that agent.
The foaf:tipjar property was created following discussions
about simple, lightweight mechanisms that could be used to encourage
rewards and payment for content exchanged online. An agent's
foaf:tipjar page(s) could describe informal ("Send me a
postcard!", "here's my book, music and movie wishlist") or formal
(machine-readable micropayment information) information about how that
agent can be paid or rewarded. The reward is not associated with any
particular action or content from the agent concerned. A link to
a service such as PayPal is the
sort of thing we might expect to find in a tipjar document.
Note that the value of a foaf:tipjar property is just a
document (which can include anchors into HTML pages). We expect, but
do not currently specify, that this will evolve into a hook
for finding more machine-readable information to support payments,
rewards. The foaf:OnlineAccount machinery is also relevant,
although the information requirements for automating payments are not
currently clear.