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Should You Donate Money to Companies?
John Buswell writes "This morning I received an email from MandrakeSoft, developers of the Linux-Mandrake distribution. One article in this e-newsletter they sent around disturbed me, they were looking for donations. Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for giving back to the community, however, if you look at their site, they are looking for donations for Mandrake specific projects like their installer (DrakX), their support websites and most disturbing of all Quality Assurance. This would be fine except that MandrakeSoft is a company, and these elements they are looking for donations for don't help anyone but their customers and their product. I know they are under a little financial strain, laying off employees and asking others to take pay cuts, but to me, this looks like they are trying to take advantage of the goodwill of the Linux community and their customers who might be a little afraid their Mandrake is going south.
Wouldn't you be outraged if a car company came out and asked for donations to improve safety features or fuel economy? These are company expenses to improve their product, so people buy more and they make more money. It's not something you ask for donations for. While I appreciate the many things Mandrake has done for Linux, I don't think they have the right to ask for money from their customers. If they were taking donations and giving funds to projects like Gnome, KDE, Apache or FSF, that would be fine, but these are ways to fund their products.
I think there are many useful projects that you can donate your money to, that are just developers working in their spare time from home, or non-profit organizations, and donating to those projects will still improve Mandrake's product, because they will definitely incorporate them into their latest releases. What does everyone else think? Is Mandrake justified in asking for donations or are they desperately seeking funds they can't obtain from their investors?"
My opinion is that to many people want cheese with their whine. This attitude trivializes the work that the real programmers do, but also the generosity of many of the major Linux companies who pay programmers to write code, and then pay ISP bills to let people download that code for free.
I don't really know much about Mandrake's financial situation. I doubt that optional donations will provide them a significant source of revenue. But I certainly don't have any problem with them providing the option to send money back to them. My distribution is Debian, and as a non-profit, I can donate money to them without offending John. But if I bought a shrink wrapped copy of Red Hat, I'd be sending a few bucks to them. What's the big deal about giving a few bucks when you download an ISO? And Mandrake has gone so far as giving donators a choice as to where those dollars go. When I give Red Hat my $50 or whatever for that box, do I get to say "Develop GNOME, please"?
Section 3B of the GPL provides for charging the distribution cost for source code, but afaik, every major distribution gives binaries away for free. Hemos and Uriah worked out that it costs OSDN something like 7 cents per ISO download on SourceForge, so I imagine it's similiar for MandrakeSoft. They don't have to provide them. It's a free service. They could charge you 7 cents. They could charge you the distribution costs if you wanted source. They aren't doing either of these things, they are giving you the option to do so, if you want. Which leads me to my main thought about this question: the attitude.
Do you complain over those "Suggested Donation Bins" at the museum? Would you complain if toll booths were optional? Of course neither analogy is perfect, but you get my point. Museums and roads cost money.
The attitude that John presents above scares me. I don't mean any offense to John, he seems like a smart guy, but I've seen so many 31337 h4x0r Linux types who've never contributed a line of code rant on about the evils of various free software companies. Yet I know many guys who've actually contributed huge chunks of code and, well, they just don't care. It's a case where the fanboys have invented some sort of cause that isn't all that important instead of doing something relevant. Those who can, code, those who don't complain.
Of course, I'm just a tool of one of the largest Linux companies, so what do I know. I'm tainted, evil, and part of the same conspiracy designed to keep free software out of everyone's hands by giving it away for free. I also know who killed JFK. But god forbid that hackers eat. And let's all complain about suggested donations too so that the only way to get copies of free software is through gnutella. Hope that 600-meg ISO doesn't abort half way.
If you downloaded the ISO and you feel you owe Mandrake something, go out and buy the retail version.
This is what I don't get. If I downloaded the ISO and then decided it was worth more than the $0 I paid and wanted to support the company, why should I go buy the retail version? I already have the ISO; I don't need the retail version. Buying it is just a waste of paper, plastic, and manufacturing costs, and the only reason I'd be doing it is to support the company. So why not just take the money I would've spent on a retail version and donate it directly, producing less garbage in the process?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
However, gratis is also incompatible with most rational business models. That Redhat wants to sell support instead of software might be a sustainable business model, but I think no one yet knows this for sure. That Eazel wanted to sell network storage and "services", just like Microsoft intends, and spent it's entire vulture capital outlay on a loss leader file manager is clearly not a viable business model; their bankruptcy attests to this fact. We'll see if any of the other support/service business models actually succeed... they may or may not.
So given Mandrake's position with its huge user base, free ISO images offered before boxed versions hit the shelves, and a development staff paid for by those sales -- how is Mandrake going to position it's product in order to generate revenue while it gives the product away for free (before commercial release) via ftp?
This is the quandry -- do we (as a community) value hiring developers to manage and enhance Free Software toward specific community (or end-user) driven goals, or should it all be created haphazard by volunteers in a great bazzaar? I think we're at the point where for free OS's and applications to succeed, we'll HAVE to create a system whereby developers are hired and paid to create community sponsored projects which then get released under the GPL (or other free licenses).
Bruce Perens, among others, has argued for a street performer type system, whereby developers request donations for the value of the projects they create. The only serious problem with this mechanism is that it could force each project to hire a lawyer in order to obtain tax deductible charity status (such as the Free Software Foundation possesses). I think a better aproach would be for either the FSF, or some other umbrella organization, to be created with the express purpose of funneling donations to most any free project. Donors could specify who they wanted receive the donation, or it could be spread about the entire collection of projects under the umbrella. I like this for several reasons:
It's voluntary. Just like it's voluntary to use and write free software, so should it be voluntary to donate.
It creates a positive economic feedback loop for each project. However much money is donated to the SAMBA project (for example) is by definition a statement of their "value" to the community as a whole. However much money they receive is what can be spent on developers, administrative costs, and conferences. As long as financial community support persists, the project has a functional business model for hiring staff.
It evens out the success of certain low profile projects that are still critical, for example the DRI project over at sourceforge. There's no economic model supporting DRI whatsoever, other than developer interest. The best they get is maybe some money from the distributions which are relying on 3D support to succeed. Thus donations become a mechanism whereby USERS can target economic incentives toward specific projects they consider necessary for their future use and needs.
Frankly, all those who deride Mandrake for sticking their hat out begging miss the point. I've never given money to Mandrake, but then again I don't use Mandrake. I have given money to the OpenBSD project, the FSF, the EFF, the ACLU, and I've bought numerous Redhat distributions; because I agree with and want to support these projects. Those individuals who donate to Mandrake might have very good economic and personal reasons for doing so. They have an OS investment in Mandrake, a desired feature set they wish implemented in the next release, and are part of a community they wish to see succeed. If those community members decide that offering donations (among box sales) will support Mandrake well enough to meet its budgetary needs for hiring developers and staff, why not pursue that revenue stream? It's no different from NPR or PBS holding their hat out to their listeners/viewers, and over the last twenty years NPR and PBS have shown that their pledge drives do succeed at paying a significant portion of their budget.
I encourage all free software projects to request donations; and most of all I encourage the creation of some charity as described above which could be used to funnel money toward any and every free project around. Maybe this is where sourceforge should go if/when VA Linux goes down the tubes?
J. Maynard Gelinas
"By oneself evil is done; by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is undone; by oneself one is purified." --Gautama Sakyamuni
Hear, hear!
Go and have a look back at, for example, the old Mandrake Cooker archives (I'm a list member there). Time and time again, people wrote to say ``Hey, I really like your distro but downloaded it instead of buying a boxed set because the box was [too slow/unavailable in my area/Had extras I didn't want/etc]. Is there some way I can give you some money to offset the cost of providing that free download?'' Mandrake caved in after about a year of this and provided the donations link.
I am left with the impression that Mandrake management didn't quite believe it, until the money started flowing...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
As has been mentioned, Mandrakesofts donations page came about after numerous requests from the users. I for one am glad to see it -- I've used Mandrake since years ago, and until now I've never paid a cent for it. I love the distro and I would like some way to show it monetarily :-) But I wouldn't go out and by a boxed set because I wouldn't read the manual, I'd throw the box away, I wouldn't need support (if that's even included) and I know retailers probably make more than Mandrakesoft from these sales anyway.
Now the great thing about Mandrakesoft is that they hire lots of developers from many free software projects, like KDE, GNOME, PHP-Nuke, Plex86, Apache and many others. When you make a donation, you can mark those money for, say, KDE development. This way KDE will get better, KDE developers will eat, Mandrakesoft will save some dough and I can sleep at night.
In my opinion Mandrakesoft is heading in the right direction -- their way of income is a lot better than that of SuSE, which seeks to sell more boxes by making it extremely difficult to download their distro. And it's better than that of Red Hat, which charges for services such as automated software updates (which is included free with Mandrake).
Indeed, I think Mandrakesoft is discovering the future ideal way of making free software and still eat three meals a day. Their method is in many ways compliant with The Street Performer Protocol, in that users will pay up if and only if they actually like what they get.
--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Absolutely. They don't force you to pay $129 for the OS, so people bitch when they give you the opportunity to voluntarily give a few bucks.
The fact is that Mandrake ALLOWS you to pay for the software. Microsoft (et al) REQUIRES you to pay. I've read most of the posts here so far & I've yet to find an argument that even makes me begin to see a bad side to this. If Mandrake were a highly profitable company, I could maybe understand the whining. As it is, I see the arguments against as rather absurd.
If you use Mandrake and bought it from them or retail, then you owe them nothing. However if you use it and downloaded it or bought if from cheapbytes then Mandrake got nothing from you, and you might consider making a donation.
The botom line though is that's the business model Mandrake have chosen, and if it doesn't work then it's up to them to change it.
Companies frequently talk about "consumer demand" as if it exists as a steady stream into their corporate headquarters. ("We introduced the new Floozbitznitz2000 to answer our customers' demand for a combination flashlight / vaccuum cleaner / all-terrain vehicle / toothbrush -- and for a limited time we're offering it for special prices!")
In 5 words, "bullshit."
Mandrake though *is* actually opening themselves up to customer demand by saying "Hey, what features or projects are you so interested in that you would not only *pledge* to give money, but *actually* give money for?"
Don't want to give money? Don't. (To Mandrake, the local public TV station, bum down the street -- heck, there are thousands of organizations and individuals you can choose to not give money to!")
I for one am happy to see something close to micropayments for free software projects, organized by a company that sponsors and releases many kilolines of free software, as well as makes a very nice distro to wrap it in.
I'd like to see an option to send money to specific developers, too (the Linus Torvalds 10th Anniv. of Linux Fun Fund?), or to support specific sub-projects. (I'd pay $10 toward a Merlin modem for a developer who'd make them work more nicely with Linux -- anyone else?)
That it happens to be a private, distro-making company organizing this seems to tweak people a lot, but to me it's a perfect demonstration of what makes Free software work -- voluntary interactions that make people happy.
And as someone else has already pointed out, Ford doesn't have a mechanism to let you choose what aspects of their cars your purchase price of a new car goes to improve -- with software, the idea that the future will be what you want it to me makes a lot more sense than it does with nearly any other type of product.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Actually, Red Hat already did ask for donations two years ago, on August 11th 1999. Many people gave them $800, and people were so enthusiastic that Red Hat had to turn away donations... Some of the refused donators got really upset about this.
Mandrakesoft is in business to make money. I know, it is a tired old phrase. I think that they can be successful by doing a few things differently.
The should be making most of their money through media purchases and support contracts. I doubt if they are profiting from free downloads. People want free downloads, because people are stingy. Give them free downloads, but don't put them in packaged format. Compile binaries and dump them in an ftp directory. How many people would want to piece an OS application by application?
Donations for QA testing? That is a little absurd. Although, I was directly approached by a Mandrakesoft senior executive once, who asked if I could help in QA testing a piece of their software. I think it is time for a revamp of the business model. Perhaps Linux companies should start selling hardware in addition to their OS distribution. Sun, IBM, and Hewlett Packard make a little money selling hardware.
Until Mandrakesoft put up their 'Donations' page; I had not paid Mandrakesoft a single penny for their services - unfortunately there is no incentive to buy a boxed distro when you already have the software on freshly-burnt CD-R's.
(I know about Mandrake Powerpack - but it offers nothing that I cannot get elsewhere)
When I consider that I could potentially spend the equivalent of seven day's wages on a license to run Windows 2000 Advanced Server; it makes me feel guilty that I can download a significantly superior operating system from the Internet for next to nothing.
I have no objection to paying Mandrakesoft the same amount of money I would be paying to Microsoft in order to keep up to date with their 'latest and greatest' piece of crap. Here is how my donations are distributed:
30% - Kernel
30% - Advanced Extranet Server
30% - Security/Crypto
10% - No preference
I am only contributing to the development of the software I use; so in the end, I will benefit from the my donation and the donations of others... personally I don't see what the problem is ?
I am tired of reading that people should 'expect' Linux distributions to be free - excepting Debian (which is produced for the community by the community); most other distributions are produced by large corporates like Red Hat and Mandrake. I don't think many people understand the work that goes into producing a mix of kernel/userspace programs/GUI apps that just *works* straight out of the box. I don't mind supporting a company that provides exactly what I want and means I have to do less work at the end of the day in order to get it running... my time is money... and if their distro saves me even two hours a day by easing configuration and installation, it deserves some financial recompense.
Before all the GPL stalwarts start getting their flamethrowers out and attempt to give me a good roasting - the GPL prohibits charging for software under its license (except for duplication costs).
But, what if I *want* to pay for GPL software ?
Does the GPL take away my freedom to pay for software that I think is of commercial quality; so I can give the authors something to show my appreciation for their efforts ?
It also helps Mandrakesoft determine what people use their product for and helps them concentrate development on those parts that people appreciate the most.
As Mandrakesoft have already said, donations are entirely voluntary. So why the hell did this make the Slashdot front page ?.
"Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wuntime ewwors!" - Elmer Fudd
This, AGAIN?
People! Mandrake's donation program was user requested. It is *well documented* in the forums on the Mandrake site, and goes back many, many months. The whole point of the program was to give users who download the ISO and don't want to spend $$$ on a full distribution a way to say "thanks" to the company who created it, without paying $80.
It's completely voluntary, and was initiated at the request of a number of Mandrake users on the website. Every time it seems this issue is settled, someone who doesn't know the history brings it up again. Perhaps it's time Mandrake put a FAQ up about it, to prevent articles such as this from making it onto Slashdot.
I do think it's OK for RedHat and the likes to as for donations though, since they are providing a salary to many of the hackers that have made Linux what it is today. It's more or less essential to the Linux community that RedHat and others stay afloat; if they need donations to do it, so be it.
I also like Mandrake's concept of specifying where you want your donation to go, but I don't think this is always a good thing. We'd all agree that support for obscenely powerful systems with 1.2 skjaterrabytes of memory is important to Linux on a grand scale, but how many people do you really think are going to check that box instead of '3d graphics acceleration' or 'GNOME'? Maybe I'm being unfair in saying that Linux should be a server OS first, then a desktop, but this is my post damnit!
In any case, I don't think there's any problem with donations and such they way they are now, and everyone just needs to STOP BITCHING!!!
If you check his homepage he has posted a bit of an update down the page.
He says: my problem is with calling it a donation and trying to present it in a way that tries to blur the line between donating to Mandrake and donating to open source projects. Out of the entire Mandrake distribution, I'd guess that less than 30% of it is actually work done by MandrakeSoft themselves, while the remaining 70% is work done by other open source projects. Up until now, I've seen MandrakeSoft's willingness to put their distribution up for free for all (unlike other vendors) was their good faith and good will towards the open souce community, and their way to contribute back in a big way. I mean after all, think of all the money they've made from retail sales and deployment of corporate solutions over the years. You don't see them sharing the spoils with various open source projects that make their distribution, sure I realise that is unpractical, but if they want to put up some kind of contribution page, they should have it state clearly that it is for people who don't want to purchase the retail and want to give back. Also eliminating the automatic price of $19.99 that pops up would show that they are not trying to sell something...
While one persons' donation like this wouldn't be of consequence, many people's may. Is there an organisation set up to distribute donations to developers equitably? Is it possible? Sensible?
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Or, if you prefer, go build your own kernel, your own version of the Gnu tools, your own version of your favourite window manager, and so on... Good luck...
I believe allot of the people who write GPL code purposefully intend for people to use it *FOR FREE*. If you are a company - which is trying to make money for YOURSELF - then i say "good luck" to *you*! You can then try and sell someone else's gratis (libre) work. Dont try and shift focus onto users to make them feel obligated to support for-profit ventures.
NOT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS FOR PROFIT. Some people (myself) are actually interested in community. Some of us are interested in seeing an end to war, exploitation, poverty, despair, crime, ill-health and everything else that makes people unhappy. I have little interest in hording money and trinkets for myself. Your attitudes betray your priorities and your point-of-view. Is my Point-View 'realistic'? Yes. Either your desire is to make the world a better place or it is not. Making excuses about how difficult it is to eliminate the afore mentioned 'problems' because it is 'impossible' only serves to rest your own conscience... are you really fooling yourself - your not fooling me.
Greed, selfishness, hubris and myopia are never excused as far as Im concerned.
If users want to send Mandrake money, let them. Obviously this indicates that their product is liked. I've been blasted here on Slashdot for saying that I buy Loki games in addition to the Windows versions I own in order to help Loki to survive.
Well, I want them to survive, so I'll buy their product. I'd even consider sending them a donation or two. Maybe some other people want Mandrake to survive, so they send Mandrake money. What's wrong with that?
Yes, I know: "But they're a commercial organization... marketplace... should have a viable product... etc..." Bullshit. If (for example) Loki goes out of business, I won't be able to buy their games anymore. I don't care if their games are a viable "product" in any given "marketplace" -- I just want to be able to keep playing them. In order for this to happen, Loki must keep making them. In order for Loki to keep making them, they've got to have some cash. So, I'm going to help out with as much cash as I can so that [hopefully] I can continue to play new Linux games. I suspect that other people may feel very much the same way about Mandrake. There's nothing wrong with being willing to pay extra for a specific product in order to allow it to survive. If you can't deal with it any other way, just look it as a personal extension of the essential selfishness of capital-based economies.
If you don't want to send money, don't. But I certainly don't see how this should turn into some kind of argument because you explicitly don't want other people to send their money wherever they want to send it.
Again, for those who didn't get it the first time, if you don't like Mandrake, don't donate. If you like Mandrake but don't want to donate, don't donate. If you like Mandrake and you feel like you want to donate just because you like Mandrake so damn much, send them as much cash as you want. If somebody gives you a hard time about you sending your own money wherever you damn well want to send it, accidentally spill your drink in their lap and get back to what you were doing.
Enough said.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW