Slashdot Mirror
Burning Money on Open Source
The following was submitted by a Slashdot Reader who would like to remain anonymous:
"I'm in the lucky position that my current job will provide me with some money through options in the near future; not a fortune, but still a lot. Which project or part of the Open Source community should I support with part of that money?
In a few weeks' time, I will, for the first time of my life, have a sizeable amount of money at my disposal, due to stock options that were granted to me (not a small feat to a German, while stock options are still mostly unknown, or limited to highest management, in most of Europe). So, I have some money I could invest wisely to get even more riches, or I could give back something to the community which I personally owe a lot to, including part of the qualification for my current job.
I'm more than willing to give part of my profit from my options to some project, like in the region of USD 20,000. What project should I give my money to? Which of the many (I guess) applicants are worthwile? Understand that I'm not looking for an investment; I'm rather looking to give back to the community something for what I think I earned due to that community.
Given the fact that my personal preference is FreeBSD (although I understand some of the advocates of the GPL), how would I decide who to give money to? Obviously, there are quite a number of people I could more or less personally support with money, but that leaves me with a bad feeling. (Giving money to friends might seem like a sensible thing, but money always distorts personal relationships, unless there is a overriding cause.)
So, what I'm looking for is something special, which wouldn't be financed by a Big Shot, but for which a donation of some money (or the equivalent in hardware) would make all that difference.
Am I wrong? Should I just buy Red Hat or VA shares? What else is out there that is not commercially viable, but very interesting or even necessary to gain major market acceptance for Open Source systems?
Mind you, I wouldn't mind making a lot of dough on this, but this is a very minor consideration (and given the recent discussion on start-ups, 20k is nothing)."
But seriously, I think that if you want to give money back to the Open Source community, it's probably best to avoid Red Hat et al, because these companies already seem to have enough money for what they're doing. Maybe it's best to look for a project that really needs some financial support?
That said, here's my advice: Don't donate $20,000 to an open source project. The big guys (XFree, GNU, Gnome, KDE) could always use it, but I don't think your money would improve their software any, just make them bigger projects. It's the little guys who I see as important; the startup OSS game developers, the small window manager that you see potential in, the guy who's working on a better file manager... you get the idea. But $20,000 is more money than most small projects could adequately handle.
Better advice: Take the money and buy some hardware: A bunch of medium-grade Linux workstations, video cards, etc. and donate them to developers who otherwise might be working on out-of-date, or non-standard equipment. Or maybe they could just use another testing machine -- who knows, but it would sure be useful for a load of developers I know of.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
With New Zealand's relatively small supply of IT personnal - companies are offering stock options to encourage both company loyalty and to entice new staff. If in fact this IT stock bubble bursts I think the entire industry will be severly damaged. Many people are leaving for the US as it is.
Electronic Freedom Foundation comes straight to mind.. Apache I'm sure could always use some backing. Help back Samba, Gnome, perhaps even the LDP. Backing NetBSD, OpenBSD, HURD would be extremely cool. =)
EraseMe
The *nixes and *BSDs are just the OS kernels.   Many are already being supported by commercial entities.
If I had $$$, I would support the application projects that most of the *nixes and *BSDS can run.   Ports are usually pretty simple between distributions and the application and documentation projcts could sure use the money!!!!
. JMHO.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
One word for you: Debian.
If anyone deserves extreme credit it would be the wonderful guys at debian.org that have single handedly created the most powerful Linux dist with no real commercial backing.
I would certainly send some money their way (if they would even accept it?)..
EraseMe
I agree with Foogle and his comments in "blah blah" in almost all aspects.
In my opinion I would definitly steer clear of the big progects like KDE and such.
something that is geared towards say one version in the *nix world.
someone small like the guy making doomling (DOOM / Wolfenstain for the palm pilot) would be a good idea, something that thge Investor likes is above all
I could rant on and on for days why someone should get it and why someone should not, opinions are like a$$holes and everyone thinks everyone else's smells worse than their own.
I do not think you are going to be finding any "community wide" agreement on how you should spend your money.
bottom line is, it is your money, do with it what you will. for a cause you beleive in. for a bit of code you admire.
Computers save man alot of guesswork, but so does the bikini
But,
If you don't do it right you will get absolutely hosed financially in the long run. If you don't balance the charitable load and carefully execute, the tax man will eat you alive.
Quick example. Say you are going to donate 10K of your option money to a cause. First off all the pre tax verbage in the package really only takes out about half thats owed. So even on a charitable contribution, be prepared to knock off another 20%. Now your dealing with 8K. Next, execution, meaning what form of donation, grant, product, etc. These methods all have pro's and cons. Lastly, how is the donation going to be used. If its for product, thats one thing, helping support a legal defense fund, thats another, monies going toward a non-profit needing admin and support is still another.
The long and short of it is, unfortunately /. is not really the best place to get financial advise, although I'm sure many different opinions will be shared on where to donate, bottom line, Get professional financial advice along with other guidance, like here at /..
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
The EFF they support a lot of opensource programs that benifit us all wiether BSD, Linux or whatever they will continue to fight for our ablility to work on the projects.
Another idea is services. Sponsor internet connectivity, source code distribution etc. If you're in entrepreneurial mode you might consider setting up a service like SourceForge over here in Europe. Mirror stuff, provide CVS, webhosting and the like.
Just thinking out loud here :) But my main advice would be since you seem to be located in Europe: sponsor/donate/support something over here.
Cya
bBob
--
*sig*
Support your local Freedows maintainers! I have never used the product, but I certainly understand and respect the motive behind the idea, as it falls into the same category as FreeDOS and DR-DOS as being (viable?) alternatives to commercial OS's such as Windows.
Also, some backing for open source word programs would be extremely useful. =)
EraseMe
Pick your favorite university and donate it to some sort of open source lab/chair. Give them the challenge of getting matching funds for it. Long term it's good for everybody. More open source programmers. More open source projects.
Fool am I... wrong ask slash... SORRY!
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Comment submitted. There will be a delay before you understand what you posted.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
LOL... I feel so stupid... see prev comment...
;-)
must have felt interesing to read.
dufke
True, everyone has their own project barrows to push (see my signature below :). Howerver, I would like to make a more general suggestion.
Why don't you finnance bug-fixing? Equivalently, you could pay people to smooth out those little inelegancies which make free software harder to use, but which most hackers will grumble about rather than fixing.
This could be done using some kind of "bounty" to the first person to fix something up, or by some kind of specific "contractual" agreement with specific coders.
Fixing copyright
How about paying some people to do the stuff we don't like to do? Like documentation, and maybe even user interfaces, though I'm quite happy with the current UI's in the OS world.
My first impulse as to how to respond to this question is to recommend donating the money to a legal fund that protects open-source interests (assuming one exists -- if not, something like the EFF might be good). Open source supports itself mostly through donation of man-hours -- developers working for free. You could always horde the money, work less, and develop more, but if you're looking to really benefit other OSS developers, contributing to their defense is a non-trivial gesture. Although contributions in the way of better hardware, etc. are valuable, one aspect of this enterprise that requires a signifigant amounts of money is the hiring and retaining of legal services. You can't kludge a solid legal defense on your own. That way, next time a software liscense comes under fire, or a patent threatens to restrict development, the open-source community has the means to respond to such legal threats.
-ac
Another option is something like Axel Boldt's Free Software Bazaar, although that concept has a few well-discussed problems of its own.
Debian is certainly a worthy cause, as mentioned, but they don't take donations--rather, they relegate them to Software in the Public Interest.
The hardware idea is certainly a good one.
What are the biggest threats to the concept of OS software? Are there any
legal battles looming? Could a war chest be set up to help fight GPL
violations and the like?
Just because you have problems doesn't mean this guy should donate his money for you to see a mental health practioner.
Besides, I'm thinking 20,000 USD isn't enough judging from the damage you've probably caused yourself...
You have been warned.
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
Ralph Furmaniak
The Great AIP (Artificial Intelligence Project)
I don't think that it is a matter of "I'm so good and so much better than anybody else".
Rather, more a difficult decision that our brotherhood of nerds has been asked to help make the decision easier. He will probably have a guilty conscience if he makes a poor decision. Most of us try not to judge so harshly.
It does depend on your motives, i.e. do you want to invest capital to make money back, or do you just want to generously support opensource?
*If* I had vast resources of money to burn, I would definitely hire a small team of programmers to work on a few opensource projects that I think are worthwhile. This is, of course, scalable. If you don't have all that much money, you can only afford one or two programmers.
Naturally this would be totally altruistic, philanthropic, non-profit, Mother Teresa, 'throw your money down the drain' behaviour (unless you want to take a big chance and try do a "RedHat".)
Optionally you could try create and actually sell an OpenSource product, tricky as that may be. But that would be like trying to start a business around OpenSource, which doesn't sound like what you want to do.
Another option might be to try some sort of education scheme. For example, you could buy Linux (or FreeBSD or whatever) CD's/PC's and donate them to schools, etc. Of course, these things normally require maintenance, which normally requires someone who already knows what they are doing, so that makes it difficult for some organizations to get off the ground. (In my experience these things fizzle out if there isn't anyone with Linux knowledge around to keep these things up n running.)
You could also market, ie, order (and dish out) lots of OpenSource paraphernalia (T shirts, mugs etc)
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit.
Whatever you decide to do, find an organization like Linux International or the Linux Fund to channel the money through.
Find what you want to donate to and then let them manage the money and ensure it does what you intend it to do.
This is what we are intending to do for any donations to our project, which is promoting localization of Linux in South East Asian countries to help third world developers and small companies.
...do all of your girlfriends have dicks?
There's a lot of shareware and freeware out there--folks who make their money putting out a product and hoping people in good heart give money back.
I know this certainly won't hit the 20K mark, but go through everything you own/use and such and send $100.00 checks to everyone on the list. Or search through Freshmeat for a couple of days and see what projects you think are pretty interesting and freeware/shareware like. There's a whole group of people out there who try to make their living off of the stuff they're writing. I would think that $20,000 would go a long way for a whole slew of them.
Also, $100.00 is a small amount of money that you won't have to worry about the ramifications of taxes and silly stuff like that (i don't think--IANA[whoever is involved with that]). And it's a small enough amount that it won't overwhelm the person you're giving it to. Large amounts of money to small groups who aren't used to having money tends to create a beaurocratic backlash... May inadvertantly kill some projects or cause the members to be angry with eachother.
And if you don't spend it all in the first week, that's cool. Just keep up the practice and such. At a bare minimum, it's a good motive to keep looking at what's out there. Might find solutions to problems you never knew you had.
/will
We need to fight the practice of patenting the obvious and restricting our freedoms.Here are some ways to fight by funding the following activities. 1. Do legal research to find and document prior art. 2. Challenge the absurd software patents through the legal process. 3. Contact and develop relationships with main stream journalists and provide them with the fruits of your research. Be scrupulously honest in the material provided. Lead them to make a mockery of the inept Patent Office. The goal here is to create such widespread justified contempt for the Patent Office, that they will be forced to change behavior. 4. Keep the funding going. This will be a long war.
rm -rf microsoft*
Your financial planner will be able to guide you towards an educated choice. They might even suggest that you support your local church or charity. I'm thinking that you might feel more community spirit by helping your fellow Germans that are less fortunate than you.
Also, some thing else to consider: the common thread between most millionares of today is that they hold on very tightly to their money. The other common thread is that they did it over a long period of time (not through IPOs).
Good luck!
The FSF: while this might go against the grain for a BSD guy, the FSF have done and continue to do a bunch of useful stuff, have a proven track record, and most of their major projects (GCC, OpenStep, a free Display PostScript) are usefull on a variety of platforms.
The EFF: a bunch of people doing good and fighting stupid laws. Which might not sound like much to do with free software, but if you think about the DCMA and the like, the ramifications are pretty scary.
The XFree86 project: A free X system is pretty important - one of the factors allowing Linux and the BSDs to be taken seriously as alternatives to commercial *ixen for workstation/desktop users. Unlike a lot of improtant projects, the XFree guys are perpetually underfunded and always need more hardware and cash (as well as programmer time).
Scholarships: One of the things needed are programmers to do stuff. A scholarship for a thesis which involves work on useful free software has got to be a winner, and may get the most bang for your buck.
Documentation: Documentation is one of the worst areas for free software. Hire a tech writer to document popular, poorly understood applications and give the docs away.
There are a lot of things that people are doing to make open-source systems simpler and more powerful. Go to a site like sourcexchange or cosource that lists things that people would like to have done, find (or add) something that you would *love* to see done, and sign up as a sponsor.
Well, you could always donate your money to the EFF's legal defense fund. Little people, like Jon Johansen (spelling?) could sure use the assistance. AND in the long run, this will actually help the community at large (pray for good rulings).
Now I understand your idea of OpenSource... I doubt he will want to contribute his 20,000 USD to your project.
What we should do, is to create a fund that people with too much money on their hand can donate to. OSS Developers needing resources could then apply for a grant. You would have something like an advisory board deciding who gets what, and how much.
The more i think of this, the better it sounds. Companies making money off OSS Software would have a way of giving back to the community without having to worry about who the money should be sent to.
Developers doing especially interesting things could get money from the fund to work on their project or hardware needed to write drivers could be bought.
A lot of projects needs money, and there are lots of companies and people that could give it. This would be a way for them to meet.
What do you think?
Hiring a small team (3-10) of professional documenters for a year would benefit the open source community immensely.
Their mission would be to find or solicit mid-level to large projects that are past the alpha design stage, interview the lead developers to gain enough detail to write an 80% user and design documents, and hand it back to the project for normal, on-going development.
The main benefit is to have someone skilled in writing "lead" the development of the documentation for a short period.
Considering the valuations on something like Amazon. I hardly see any of the Linux related companies being shamefull. When a retailer. A damn retailer can trade at well over 10X sales all the linux stocks look damn cheap.
I say give it to some organization devoted to defending the rights of open source developers. The GPL will be tested one day and its very important it win that test.
--Chris
I've got something for my brothers to munch on. Dumbass, self-congradulatory Cock Goblins like yourselves are going to get it and get it good.
I keep forgetting to put the FSF on my "they need it more than I do" list along with Planned Parenthood and the ASPCA.
Good call.
I'd also like to third (?! -- or twentieth, by now
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
How about fund a free hosting service for open source projects regardless of their platform? The biggest danger I see is that no one really gives much credit and attention to the rather large BeOS open source community and the growing Mac and Windows open source development communities. Isn't open source, open source regardless of platform? The best way to give back to the open source community as a whole is to recognize and help those who are trying to bring open source philosophies to the closed source OS's.
[This doesn't have to wait for money to start, but $$$$$ would sure kickstart a project like this.]
The open source community, especially within the last few years of massive development, is in serious need of code merging.
I'm not talking about the big projects that have obviously different design goals, but so many of the little projects that have mostly overlapping features.
The project would start off working with Freshmeat to find projects that could be merged. Possibilities include command line utilities, taking GUI apps and creating a shared library of the core functionality, and taking language-specific libraries, converting them to C/C++/Obj-C, and rebinding them back to multiple languages.
Based on the list of projects, the code-reuse project can then begin coming up with tips and techniques for merging projects (both source and community), getting the various developers talking to each other, and participating in the merge effort.
I'd sign up to work on this project.
How about handing it out to a few OSS Game developers?
With 20k you could probably make at least 4 teams speed up a bit.
I'm currently involved in the making of a game that will be released on MAC, Win32 and Linux on a shared disc.
We have serious problems with the funding so I guess that the others have the same problem. In our case the most of the money would go to graphics packages like PS, LW and such. This is because all our graphicans are MAC and Win32 users and wont even consider using GIMP.
Anyway, a few OSS Game developer teams could sure use the money. And if the OSS community suddenly get a few cool games. There sure would be a few more reasons for those balancing between OSS and Win32, MAC to switch over.
Ofcourse this is my biased comment, I would LOVE to see a big OSS game myself.
Note. I'm not trying to get the money myself! The rest on the team are NOT OSS supporters so. It's going to be closed source. But, it helps me get those coding fingers in place.
How about support broadcast 2000 a little. They were needed about $3,000 to get a hold of the firewire SPEC for digital camera's to beable to support them in their software. I think it is a neat video editing program and they don't want much. Broadcast 2000 Firewire Information and here is the Broadcast 2000 Homepage
Hi,
Why don't you give the money to a school so they could buy computers with Linux inside. I think it's a lot more important for kids to get initiated to computers than the developers that can easily make money since they are usually well educated.
Luugi
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
Yes it is an important project because any programmer needed at one time or another to write a program giving a similar functionlity, resulting in dozens of thousands fo implementations that are mostly doing the same thing.
Seeing that the world was drowned under so much waste of programmer talent doing it over and over again I decided to create a project that would allow people to get free of reimplementing it and give them the opportunity to innovate in other software models. I called this project "The ultimate Hello World".
Yes, I can see your sign of relief to the thought that not ever again you will have to re-engineer this software and taht you will be able to take a pre-cooked solution that would solve all your "Hello, World" problems and set you free of it's mind-bogging complexity.
I think that as generous and visionary as you are you will understand the importance of thi sproject and understand what boost you would give both to this project and to the software community (by inirectly saving them from the assle of thi8s program) by giving 20,000 US$ to this project.
I hereby thanks you in advance.
PS: To contact me for the donation just use the e-mail adress given above my comment after getting rid of the anti-SPAM feature.
More seriously I think that serious candidates are:
1. the FSF. Without them we wouldn't have Linux and probably wouldn't have *BSD (because of GCC), furthermore a lot of people may not love Stallman but since more than 15 years he said the same message and you can be sure that he would us ethe money to favorise Free Software.
2. One of the *BSD, particulary if this is what you prefer. This would be great for them because they don't have the IPO craze there is around Linux and I don't think they would mind a little help. 3. "The ultimate hello, World" of course ;) 4. Maybe give money to people that are working not directly on Free Softwares but are fighting causes that impact Free Sofware, like the league for programming freedom which works against software patents, or the EFF which fights for the preservation of our rights online. 5. Split the sum between many smaller project, these are probably those that need more money because they are less known and attract less founding.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
with that said, imo, the best way to contribute to open source is to find some time and write some code. while money is nice, remember, money for open source cannot hire more programmers or find bugs, or create applications to fill a large hole.
just daveo's $0.02 ;0)
-DAVEO
If you really want to help the Open Source community, talk to a computer teacher in a local middle school/high school. Find out how it works and what effect your donation to that department would have. Then help them out-- directly through funds or (better!) indirectly through computers and time spent helping kids learn to code.
I'll bet this even improves your own skills. It will do more than giving to any organization- even the EFF (another good cause).
There already are several open source development coordination sites. Browse those and see if one of the existing sites or projects tickles your fancy.
I actually agree here. More precisely I say, put your money in the hands of somebody doing something cool tat you wouldn't bother with and he doesn't want to do.
As an example. When I talk to new Linux users one of the major problems they complain of is that none of the text mode editors follow any conventions they are familiar with. I.e. You learn VI at university and you learn Emacs on the Job.
If you are not an IT professional then you probably expect [shift + down arrow] to select a line of text and [ctrl + X] to cut it.
That's how all the GUI text editors work and EDIT.COM from dos dose the same thing. It's a small job and $5,000 would probably get it done. As it stands nobody who wants it can write it and nobody who can write it wants it.
There are several such small projects that go nowhere and will never get done without funding.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
You might consider the Open or Net BSD's - they are not as well-funded as FreeBSD, and some of the code you like in FreeBSD was probably developed on one of them. Remember that the BSD family, despite being "fractured", is actually fairly cooperative. (I'm a big fan of NetBSD, myself.)
You want to do them a world of good? Offer the $20k to support a specific port or driver project that's languishing for lack of time, or to get a software developer to port a package to some free system. $20k may not be enough in the latter case, but it might nudge them over the edge.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
There are a lot of people out there who could develop faster and better if they could just get their hands on some newer hardware. Many OSS developers have no cash to spare, and giving them a hundred dollars to help fund that new video card or harddrive could make all the difference.
We see these meteoric rushes to riches with the recent linux-related IPO booms and all, but upon closer inspection it's all based on nothing. Companies with some of the best IPO's and stock prices (a la Red Hat) are operating in the hole. The whole e-commerce thing is based on speculation. Although it is really cool that these newfound fortunes are going to in part be put to good use, what happens if (or rather when) the investors take a good look and realize that these companies are losing money every year? ...but more on topic, If I had that much money to spend on open source projects I believe I would give it to the likes of xmms to research the quicktime format for a linux player ;)
-invictus
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#!/usr/bin/perl -sp0777iX+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
--Ks9
Good point. There can be taxes on gifts. The situation is more complicated in various countries, and I know the USA gift tax is complicated by gifts over $10,000 and international gifts. Depending on how the money is given, the donor and/or recipient may have tax consequences (taxes or deductions).
There are a lot of facets to what makes open source work.. one of the key elements is for developers to 'scratch an itch'..
I'm not sure exactly how paying someone fits in, but you could in effect scratch your own itch and set up a contract at source exchange
that suits your personal application desires. Who knows..
Regards,
Ivar
I think its rediculous how slashdot is always talking about money these days. It's like holding a big candy bar 2 feet from a first grader, and he knows he cant get it. This has nothing to do with news, nerds, or coding. Lets get things straightened out here
Linux gets a bum rap for not scaling well. I see that as completely understandable, as no Linux kernel developer has the megabucks to buy that hardware to use and test. Corporations like MS and Sun have it (Sun builds the hardware; they don't even need the money). A great use for a large sum of cash would be to purchase (if not by yourself, find some other like-minded zillionares) some high-end, enterprise-level hardware and donate either the hardware itself or time on it to the kernel team. Let them develop enterprise-ready kernels by using an enterprise box for development and testing.
I know that it's less convenient, but consider an involved donation. Rather than just sending a cheque somewhere, it can be much more helpful (to the organisation) and satisfying (to you) to give money as well as some of your own time.
A prime example is educational programs, like we discussed on Slashdot yesterday. There are plenty of organisations working to teach disadvantaged children how to use computers, and most of them are disgustingly under-funded.
There are other groups -- Computers For Kids kind of things -- that are in the business of taking old computers and turning them into useful learning vessels for children. Most of these programs are inexplicably hooked on Microsoft software, and a $20,000 shot in the arm along with a little hand-holding could result in hundreds of children learning the ways of *nix and OSS.
In order to make these donations useful to you and to them, some involvement, even if just for a few days, would be immensely helpful. You would get to direct how your money got spent and you could see the results of your hard work -- excited children that think that Tux is way cooler than Mickey Mouse(tm). And the organisations would be pushed in a direction that they might not otherwise have discovered, instead wandering down the path of closed-source and Visual Basic into the Land of Mediocrity.
I envy your opportunity. I've never had much money to give away, but, when I do, I try and do it in an involved manner. Some call it ego-boosting, but I call it the most satisfying donation that you can give. Any fool (think Bill Gates) can give some money and walk away. But a rare few fools give some money and their time. You got your money through your expertise. Give away a bit of each.
-Waldo
If it were me, I'd talk with the guy in charge of the softwarecarpentry project and combine my 20K with their 820K. Amongst a coupla other things, they're replacing two obvious open-source warts--make and autoconf. They're found at software-carpentry.com. If I didn't like that option, I'd probably fund the kernel-threads development for FreeBSD.
only fools give money to OSS
While linux is just a kernel, the *BSDs are full operating systems. Maybe you need to do a little research before you post.
-doug
A friend of mine was in a similar position, and he decided to donate a fair chunk of change to our university's unix users group. Our treasury was then just about nil, and he just couldn't see us competing very effectively with the sororities in revenue from car washes.
If you think that they are a club that actually DOES stuff, then you might want to consider donating a little bit to them. It doesn't have to be a lot, they'll probably be thankful and find a use for anything you can give them, so there should be plenty leftover for other, larger donations.
Just something to think about.
The causes that I see need most work:
You're welcome.
While linux is just a kernel, the *BSDs are full operating systems. Maybe you need to do a little research before you post.
:-)
Sorry sir, I'm running NetBSD 1.4.1 on my home LAN, so I know exactly what it is.   Define to me a "full operating system" (hopefully you don't mean something akin to windoze, which ties most of its apps into the core kernel).  
My point is that Linux or any Unix or Unix-like distribution (like the *BSDs) *without* the accompanying applications is what?   Just a kernel.   That's what makes them so "modular".
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
I'd say donate to support Carmac in his fight for the GPL of the Quake 2 code but I don't think he needs it...
OpenSource doesn't need money to write code (the coders, etc. aren't doing this for the money), it does need money to fight legal battles against large corporations.
Another idea would be to donate it to a local school or other group teaching programming/computing with OpenSource products.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
What a great problem to have!
Deciding which open source organization to give 20G's to is no small matter indeed. Myself I'm partial to the GNU or XFree86 or KDE. I use the spoils of all of these projects every day and have never had to pay a cent. There are also the lower profile projects like cdrecord and mkisofs that most of us couldn't get along without. Then there are guys like Utah-GLX who are making it possible for me to play Quake. The list goes on and on as you well know.
The trick is to think about where open source is headed. Find the one project that nobody will be able to live without a year from now. Of course that is much easier to say than to do.
Just think about where you were x years ago when you started using open source. Find somebody that is in that same place right now. Dump some cash on them. The rewards to the community and to yourself will be great!
If I was in your position, I would spend some time looking around for some projects that could really use the money. Enjoy the process, see what the needs are and choose something that will actually make a difference. Rather than throwing 20k at a project, see exactly what they need and do it for them. I bet some developers would love to have a brand new 5k workstation (dual processor, 21" monitor, etc). If you are looking for ideas, go to sourceforge or sourcexchange. As a side note, I have been thinking about different ways of getting funding for my project. I am writing an open source UML Case tool (similar to Rational Rose) and would be very happy to open source the code in exchange for a brand new high end workstation. I wonder if some of the big open source companies like RedHat, VA, etc would be willing to donate a machine or some cash in exchange for opensourceing the code? Chris Hafey
keep it alive in your heart. money has little or no relation to it.
Please don't start with this institutionalized begging, whereby everyone associated with an open source IPO is required to fork half of their loot back into your coffers.
Right now there is a shortage of American students graduating from universities with Computer Science or Computer Engineering degrees. If these "tech millionairs" want to do something for the tech world (and for that matter it would indirectly benefits the Open Source community), then set up scholarships funds for students who wish to major in the technology fields. Maybe more bright students would gravitate toward Computer Science if it ment a free education.
That's funny.. from what I've experienced, stock options are about the safest stock-market relatedthing you can do... There is no risk to you, and you only have to buy the stock when you want to sell it!
VA Linux is tying to sell essentially stock PC's.
Pehrpas one thing they both share are huge competitors and razr-thin margins.
Hey buy some stock in ANDN (Andover.net)! They are a great company. They make no money and have no products. Their stock price has plummeted from 90 to now in the 40's since their IPO!!!
Now, I am not saying the we don't need patents or copyright law, only that they have been so twisted to protect corporate interests that they clearly violate the First Amendment and our right to Free Speech. And now it is time to fight back - to start our own grassroots lobbying effort for rational IP laws that balance the needs of the creators of content and the users of content.
If you want you 20K to have a lasting impact, this is where you should "invest" it. You certainly won't see you hard returns and the pay off is certainly a long way in the future as our enemies are the definition of deep pockets - but I can see no more important cause in the Open Source movement.
I sort of liked the concept of buying a few shares of freedom infringing or patent offending companies to give one a voice at the shareholder meetings.
/. pat on the back. :)
20K as a starter fund would give one a lot of flexibility to do just that, and with many companies at once. A lot of influence (or at least input/intelligence) could be had for just a few dollars. And, the money remains yours - it could even turn a profit. All while contributing to the community and protecting freedom.
In any case, I agree with many posters here, you should definitely seek some sort of financial advice from (tax?) professionals in addition to whatever you might glean from here.
Please let us know what you decided to do so we can collectively give a
Just my 2 little copper coins...
Russ
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
(disclaimer: I'm a student, so I'm not exactly suggesting this from an impartial point of view)
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Just lurking, thanks!
They prolly do. I mean, one of them has got to and the AC poster sure doesn't seem like he (it) has what those "girls" have..
I wonder which one wears the dress though.. *shudder*
Why don't you give your money to a charity like the World Food Programme? US$20,000 would buy about 500 tons of food (as per thehungersite.com) and would be a much wiser use for your money than wasting it on an already privileged group of northern elites....
Most recently: FSF, PostgreSQL, Internet Software Consortium, and The American Indian College Fund.
sorry about the AC posting, I am a bit paranoid about admitting wealth in today's society...
One could hire a gaggle of lawyers, and begin filing patent applications over every variety of technical contrivance embodied in the collective open source pool. These patents would then become public property, granted under auspices of an agreement based upon the principles of CopyLeft.
The purpose of such patents would be twofold. First, they would be defensive patents, against corporate hoarding, as it were. Second, and perhaps more important, they should serve as a guide to people who wish to impliment whatever concept that the patent protects. This idea occurred to me whist reading about the court action re: DeCSS. It seems that the defendant's attorneys included the entire text of the DeCSS algorithm in the public court documents. This is a splendid idea, and fits well into the scheme of patents. Such patents should include an appendix that describes in detail how the concept was implimented. The actual source code need not be included, but salient concepts about what the code must do, what kind of things caused problems, and the solutions thereto.
I have recently realized that Open Source is just the tip of the iceberg of the kind of communal, cooperative efforts that will eventually lead us to become a collective intelligence. This is a new, and wonderful thing. I look forward to interesting times. -- Norm Reitzel (Blue Water Ventures)
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Yes, I prefer FreeBSD too...No flame please.
\\IIIIIIII |*** HEIL JON KATZ!***| JonKatzJ //
//IIII|* *| onKa\\
\\IIIIIIIIII| The Fourth Reich is Upon Us!|tzJonKatzJ//
//IIII |* *|on Ka\\
\\IIIIIIII|** jonkatz@slashdot.org **| tzJonKat//
My understanding is that you still get the tax break (Laws may very in your country).
This is my understanding: You set up a modest fund. The principal slowly grows over time, and they skim off money yearly for donations to non-profit orgs. A small percentage "skimmed" for donations means that the principal will grow faster, meaning that the integral of the money given to open source over a long time is larger, but the short term donations are very small. You set up the rules for deciding who gets the donations, etc.
IMHO, this is the best way to contribute to the future of OpenSource. If you make a bad decission one year, you didn't throw all of your donation down the tube, there's still money for next year. You ensure that your donation gets invested instead of being spent on short-sighted goals that may not pan out.
Karl
I'm a slacker? You're the one who waited until now to just sit arround.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
What's the best way to get things fixed?
Hire a programmer to do specific work?
Buy an amateur equipment so they can do work?
Place a bounty on a problem, so someone decides to work on a program/problem?
Give money to an organization that's already working on a problem.
Any other possibilities I'm forgetting?
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
OSS games could use more support. If OSS can get the gaming community behind it, nothing will stop it. Look at what the gaming community did for 3d acceleration. Within 1 year it became a standard feature on all new computers. Even iMacs have 3d acceleration. The game community drives the PC industry forward.
I've addressed this issue myself, not a someone rolling in hordes of cash (no IPO for me) but as someone who has benefitted from the GPL and Open Source without being programmer enough to give anything back. My method has been through direct community service, namely installing Linux networks in non-profits. But I don't think that's right for you.
Your answer: Legal Defense. You see, in an economic sense, Open Source really *is* a revolution. OS, Internet, and GPL-based ventures are overturning conventional business models, and threaten to destroy the very-scarce-resource model that defines modern mega-corporate capitalism. And, as "revolutionaries", we can expect to come under attack by those (like AOL-Time-Warner) with a lot invested in the old economic model.
Since this is not a revolution of guns, that attack will come through courts, patent offices, and law enforcement. We've just seen the beginning of it through the DeCSS case and the Millenium Copyright Act. And our main defense is to get our own lawyers and tie the issues up in court long enough and often enough that none of us has to work in terror of being singled out as an example, or of having the free distribution of our OS code outlawed.
So give your money to legal defense. EFF is good; the ACLU and Amnesty could be persuaded to pitch in, especially by a $20,000 donor. Or put your money in a foundation, and make grants to cover the court costs of lawyers who defend OS programmers and companies.
I hope you get a chance to read this comment and find it persuasive. It's important to me, because the more laws and legal precedents we let pile up against OS, the harder we'll have to fight later to regain our right to give away our work to whom we please.
Sincerely, fuzzy@agliodbs.com
Most open source projects don't know how to accept donations, and for the money itself to make a difference (in terms of increasing amount of labor, as opposed to hardware purchases) it would take quite a bit of it. The nice thing about cosource.com is being able to join your donations with those of others in order to build up a more useful sum for supporting, etc.
If you just want to use the money as incentive, to carrot additional work out of people, that's fine too - and also quite doable through cosource.
Personally I think it's a little scary to give money to open source. I wouldn't mind investing in a startup that sells open source. Perhaps even a risky start up. I think companies should give money to open source because they get advertising and good will in return.
Open Source is sort of a means to an end. The goals are for everyone to have access to software, to create software that doesn't suck technically, and to put the user in charge of his software so that when something breaks he can fix it. The goal of giving to charity is generally to help people. For me the fewer steps inbetween the giving and the benifits to humanity the happier I am as a giver. Open source doesn't really need money in the sence that other people, noteably poor and hungry people need money.
On the other hand, I really like the idea of giving source code back to the community. If you do that then you still have your source code. Plus you could feel really good about the fact that thousands of people are using your source... and it's advertising for you too. If you can't write code you could write docs or something... Or if you have the time to help kids learn about computers then do that.
What I want to do is go back to Zambia and start teaching Computer Science at the university. Or maybe get a lot of high school students involved. Have a huge project to translate the man pages into Bemba. There are so many exciting things to do. Of course I would do it with Linux because that's what I like and because nobody wants Zambia to have to rely on MicroSoft for software needs. But the reason I would do this is not because of Open Source but because of Zambia...
If I was seriously going to give money to the Open Source community I would invest in a startup. Or give money to something like Linux for South East Asia. Or buy a bunch of lab computers for a high school.
I happen to have my own little documentation project that could use funding too... it's called guru (the GNU User Re-education Utility).
Maybe Foogle was right in claiming that everyone had their own vested interests.... ;)
Fixing copyright
Great idea! Cut me in, too!
Oxfam estimates that it takes an average of $20 spent on a well-managed relief program in order to save a human life.
All these companies and individuals made money with linux/bsd open source should start a project to make linux as user friendly as they can. I realize linux is the best server out there, but it doesn't do any good unless you can get linux on Mr. Average Joe's desktop.
I say stop fighting over KDE and Gnome and make something that my 55 year old dad can understand. Show people that a company other than Microsoft or Apple can make a truely user friendly GUI.
Welcome to the Entropy Bar, may I take your order?
I think many of us own a lot to documentation authors. Perhaps we have started years ago in networking solely because someone wrote a document to explain TCP/IP, or maybe how to setup nat, firewalling, etc. Back then, paying $50 for each progarmming book was out-of-the-question. Many of us who have contributed to free-software owe a lot to those authors whose names we cannot recall and never tried to learn. Those little documents in LDP went a long way. Without them, Linux would not have been fun 7years ago, besides, we might have gone back to DOS long ago if those documents were not there so we could teach one another.
I am pretty sure the bank files form, at least in the US, only if the deposit is greater than 10k in *cash*. In several occasions I haved deposited amounts greater than 10k in cash, the bank filed the form, but nobody ever questioned me about it.
http://singularity.posthuman.com/singularitarian/P tS/plan.html
One area where we're lagging Windows is high-quality, freely-redistributable fonts. With 4.0 version of X coming out soon, quality true-type or other non-bitmapped fonts are going to be needed; pay a font foundry to create some, including Japanese / Chinese / Korean fonts etc.
Even if you don't agree with the goals of our particular organization, I think it is a good model for what any open source company should shoot for. One of the greatest contributions open source has is to broaden access to technology and I personally believe that any open source company that does not sponsor this kind of educational initiative is failing the community.
If you wind up with more $$$ (well, marks) than anticipated, have you considered angel investing? In short, investing funds (preferably along with a few other AI's) in a new startup and mentoring them. Ideally, you'll help create new software, more wealth, and have fun doing it. This might not make sense given Germany's rapaciously high taxes (tho I understand they're finally coming down; someone's getting supply-side religion?), but it's increasingly common here in America.
If your interests are more academic, perhaps you could buy a nice computer lab for an interested local high school? A decent Linux-based server networked with diskless Linux workstations would be very cost effective and not overly difficult to administer. You would, of course, be obligated to help get them up and running (grin), but I'm sure lots of student volunteers could be found. With luck, some of those students could go on to startups of their own. (256MByte Athlon workstations, maybe shell out for a VA Research dual-P3 server... Forte for Java would make a *great* learning environment...) They'll probably need help getting a high-speed Internet feed, too.
If that seems a bit indirect to you, then I'd strongly urge that you put the money toward legal and political efforts, like the aforementioned EFF or its European counterpart(s). I know that certain elements in the EU are pushing for a U.S.-style patent system, which would be a disaster. Find out who's opposing it and give them a hand.
Simpletoneity, n. -- The phenomenon of many people all doing the same stupid thing at the same time.
I would support crypto-projects like The Harmless Little Board , a crypto device for telephone-calls (German), the FreeS/WAN project to encrypt all your TCP/IP connections or a Smartcard_for_linux project...