Yeah. He's been losing money on the thing for awhile now.
The problem was always the "big hitters" never donating damn near anything to the cause. I was donating some paltry little ~3-4% @ 15GH/s and was almost always 2nd or 3rd in the total donations. It just meant the big boys set it to 0%.
That's the problem with a lot of the pools; yee-freaking-haw if someone cranking out 5GH/s donates 5%, if the big guys never donate, it's all for naught.
Another option will be a floating fee based on the expenses of the pool. This means that when bitcoin is falling fees will rise, forcing inefficient mining operations to stop. Likewise, if bitcoin is rising, fees fall because less bitcoin is required to pay expenses.
Of course, if you are a die-hard bitcoin bull, nothing will keep you from mining, even at a loss since you believe the price will rise to an acceptable level in the time-frame you anticipate.
In any case, I don't think that the voluntary donation is a viable long term solution for funding of a pool.
If the big hitters don't want to pay fees, or at least minimal fees, then p2pool is a reasonable option. Also, it make a reasonable DDOS proof backup pool.
