Giving Back

As Linux trade shows appear on the schedule, there's only one sure bet. The community will be attending in full force, and the amount of corporate money being thrown into these shindigs will consistently climb. While companies vie to present their finest hardware, software and hype to the public, organizations that provide Linux community spirit make an effort to collect charitable contributions to keep the spirit of Open Source and Free Software alive.

In a community that champions the freedom of software and super-low-cost solutions, money is scarce. Without a big PR and marketing budget to back them up, travel arrangements and sleeping accommodations are paid for by the same people who donate countless hours making Linux a better environment to work and play in. The guy that makes $7 an hour at his tech support job and codes Linux device drivers at night is most likely paying his own way.

The LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York City was the largest Linux trade show to date. With a massive show floor and big-name exhibitors, you could almost hear the money change hands. On the other side of the cash fence, the .org pavilion was filled with bleary-eyed developers fighting with machines, trying to get their latest nifty gadget to compile. Some of the exhibitors in the .org pavilion had a bowl out to accept donations from the public, who they've invited in to their community. The fact that the .org pavilion gave these people a chance to shine is a big step in the right direction on behalf of the sponsors. The "if you build it, they will come" mentality is graciously accepted on behalf of the community, and they show up in droves to get great exposure for their work.

Donation cash seems to flow in the direction of the news of the day. While the DVD Copy Control Association barrels toward resolution on the distribution of the DeCSS code, conference folk emptied their pockets to help out the defendants in the case. At the Andover party at the China Club, Tucows Linux began accepting donations on behalf of the defendants to toss into the "DeCSS Legal Defense Fund." They collected $891 at that party, and Tucows matched them, bringing the total for the defense fund to $1,782. While they told everyone at the party that Tucows would double the cash, they had yet to clear it with Tucows President Elliot Noss. When they sheepishly approached Elliot after the party, Elliot was ecstatic and agreed to match the amount immediately. "This isn't about pirating movies but about engineering processes," he said, "Anything that stifles the people's ability to create is bad for consumers." Tucows cash aside, Linux kernel maintainer Alan Cox donated $10,000, exactly the amount of an award given to him by Slashdot earlier in the evening.

The Free Software Foundation is a well-known supporter of the Linux community. If it weren't for tools written for the GNU project or software distributed under the GPL license, Linux as we know it today would simply not exist. While the amount of money that was donated to the FSF last year is still in the hands of the auditors to be tallied and totalled, the FSF didn't add a lot to their coffers this last time out. The exact amount was not available at the time of this writing, but Leslie Proctor from the FSF assures me that it "wasn't enough to discuss."

On the other hand, Software in the Public Interest, Inc. received a decent amount at the show. SPI is a "blanket" non-profit organization devoted to helping out Open Source software projects, like Debian, GNOME and Berlin. Software in the Public Interest pulled down about $800 for the week, maybe a little bit more. I got the chance to talk to Darren Benham, treasurer for SPI, and I asked him how the donation at this show compared to other show they've attended. "I don't think there is a comparison. We only tracked donations at the last three Linux World Expos, and and they've been all over the map. The first one, we may have gotten two or 300 dollars total. At the last San Jose LinuxWorld Expo, we got closer to three thousand. The only way we collect money is by having something to offer. We had T-shirts at the LinuxWorld Expo in San Jose, we had some CD's at this one, and that's the only way we get any money at all from the expos." While being able to make money from donations is a great thing to continue the work, exposure is key. "We don't actually go to the expos to try and make money. We're there to get Debian out into the eyes of the public."

Comments

Linux community?

[pb]

Sure, the Linux community is great and all, but remember that we're also part of a larger Free Software community. (and we also have commercial interests on Linux as well)

First, I'd say that the Linux Community has always been a supporter of the FSF, but not always the other way around. (spare me your GNU/Linux!) Also, the core BSD people have always been very gracious, unlike some of their (rabid FreeBSD) users (to balance out our rabid Linux-on-x86 users :).

Where am I going with this? Well, I guess I just don't want to hear more "Linux-is-good Rah-rah-rah" stuff as much as I want to hear "The cooperation in the Free Software and Hacker communities is astounding, and many wonderful projects and environments have come from this, such as Linux."

We should continue to support the development and implementation of new and cool ideas, and not let ourselves get too stuck on one platform or OS. Our portability is our strength.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

So much more out there...

[Knile]

But remember, all you multi-millionaire /. readers who don't quite know what to do with all your extra cash...

There's many more charities/.orgs who you can really help, tech-related and non. I remember reading, back in August, about a LUG in Baltimore(I think?) who helped inner-city, disadvantaged kids get online and get the technological know-how that they'll need to get ahead, 15-30 years from now in the workplace. I'd love to hear of more people giving to that sort of group, both time, money, and material goods(read: boxes =)

On the non-tech side, think of everything that's helped you along the way. Did you grow up watching Sesame Street? I'm sure your local public TV station would give you a coffee mug if you threw $25 at them.. Habitat for Humanity prefers time/work donated, but $ probably won't hurt them...

Give till it hurts!--
Neil

Then stop whining and start writing!

[coyote-san]

You may find this difficult to believe, but we *know* that newbie documentation is a big problem. But we also know that it's impossible for someone with 20 years of Unix experience to write that documentation because we've long since forgotten the process we went through back then.

Even if we do recall what we went through, our assumptions were very different. I used punch cards in college, and the card reader (I was told) transmitted the job to another university 100 miles away for processing. Each run cost "money" and after maybe 25 tries we had to ask the professor for more computer time. In graduate school I got *unlimited* access to a VT-100 which was connected to a BSD-4 system (not *BSD. *Real* BSD that ran on a VAX 11/750 in its own shrine room with picture windows to impress the underclassmen.) I thought I had died and gone to heaven... and I didn't work with a GUI display for almost a decade afterwards.

Do you think I have any chance of writing useful "newbie" documentation? Get real. But *you* know what assumptions a newbie - or at least *some* newbies - bring with them when they try out Linux. You know what questions they will ask -- and what type of information is useful to them.

So *you* should be writing the newbie documentation. You might not think you can do much, but even a list of the 50 things you wish someone told you a few months ago might be enough to make it much easier for the next person.

It's important to note that that's how I write my HOWTOs. I don't write them for Joe Q. Random, I write them to remind me what I did 6 months later. If I think they're general enough, and there's not already a HOWTO out there, I'll toss them up on my web site. If I get enough feedback to show that others find it useful, I'll also send it to the LDP.

A lot of anti-FSF attitude going around

[Kurt Gray]

To my great dissappointment I've asked various people here and people at other Linux companies about sharing a nice slice of IPO money with Free Software Foundation, not like we can't afford to write them a nice big check -- in fact I nagged our executives to do so the day we went public. On one hand we (Andover) assumed FSF would get a Beanie (they did not, if I recall) but we at least run lots of free banners for them on Freshmeat, but what bothers me is so many people working in the open source/ linux business do not want to deal with the Free Software Foundation in any way, shape, or form all because of a certain individual who annoys them by the initials of RMS. I've been told again and again by various people that they do not want to give money to FSF simply because they hate Richard Stallman. I've also had people tell me that RMS will refuse corporate money. I don't agree at all. So what if RMS is an extremist, I don't care. I'm going to keep bitching and bitching and stirring and pot here until someone here mails a fat check to Free Software Foundation -- I consider Andover and certain other Linux companies to owe a huge debt to FSF, and I want to see at least Andover's share of that debt is paid off, and I don't give damn if you like Stallman or not. Thankfully the executives here are very open minded and want to help, so I'm sure we'll do more for FSF soon.