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A New Year's Idea: Pay For Some Freedom
As you may have read the other day, the FreeBSD project is now taking donations via PayPal. And if you're in a clean, roots-UNIX kind of mood, the folks at OpenBSD and NetBSD (NetBSD PayPal) would probably also appreciate your goodwill, not to mention your money, hardware and time.
If you don't have a specific project in mind, but would like to donate some of your chunk of the time-money continuum to a worthy software undertaking, a good place to start is Software in the Public Interest. They can take both general donations as well as earmark for projects they support, like Berlin, Debian, GNOME and more. (Not into GNOME? KDE could use some assistance, including money, too.)
If you like the projects funded by the boxed-distribution makers (like paying for full-time work on endeavors like KOffice), you can do more than buy the box: Mandrake has recently formed something called the Mandrake Club as a gathering place for both people and funds.
To encourage (and reward) cross-platform goodness, supporting the Mozilla project is hard to beat. (This story was posted using a 9.7 build using the wonderful Modern theme.) Source of Mozilla wisdom Mozillazine could use some help paying for the switch to a new host, and to defray ongoing costs. Another good place to cast your perls is Yet Another Foundation, which supports the somewhat scrutable development of the not-so-scrutable Perl.
More generally, consider investing some money in organizations like the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Electronic Privacy and Information Center (EPIC), all of which help battle (in court and in the marketplace of ideas) the forces who wish to monitor and otherwise exert top-down control of your computer and everything to do with your on-line life.
Remember, with all of these projects, non-monetary contributions are welcomed as well -- if you can write or correct some online documentation, create test-cases to root out weaknesses, or create some pretty graphics to smooth the user experience, you can contribute. (Long-distance pizza deliveries to developers are also generally appreciated.) Teaching a coworker, classmate, parent or friend how to set up mailfilters on a Linux box, or how to edit photos in the GIMP, is a nice way to save them money, too. Making a difference locally might also mean contributing some time, money or hardware to help run local LUG events.
Note: Many of the organizations named above are set up as 501(c) charities; if you'd like to claim any charitable contributions as tax deductions, now's the time to get the postmark, at least if it's important to you for those donations to be on the current calendar year. For a few more ideas on ways to donate geekily this year, see Jack Bryar's Newsforge column with some more links.
And a Happy New Year's!
Donations can be sent in the form of beer....
to copy and send this off to Bill Gates. He likes giving out charity ... wait a second ...
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
yeah, you could give your money to these foundations and projects, but you don't know where it's going to go. if it will get to the programmers who really need it or not. so just to be safe, you can your money to me.
:D
no middle man.
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
... Or then you could give the money to Red Cross...
Couldn't this all be avoided by a good open source business model? Isn't that what we're really looking for here? I don't think a software company can run completely funded by donations.
fp?
Now I finally have a use for that $20 that great-aunt Esther sent me! And to think, I was planning to buy a tank of gas with it...
Give to openbsd!
Some of us don't feel too kindly towards PayPal. And Amazon at least has a somewhat trusted name.
Scratch this. I just read the FAQ. They want $0.15 + 15% of the donation.
Sigh. I thought it was a good idea.
DISCLAIMER: I work for a corporation who is partnered with Amazon
John
John
Hey Timothy-
I got free warez from Czech, biatch.
I rule Slashwhore.
My love is always free.
Don't forget Damian Conway! It's another good opportunity to help Open Source (and Perl).
Get busy living or get busy dying. Carpe diem.
If I were developing something, I'd try to implement some sort of micro-payment plan. ...
Yes I know its already been tried
It's better to at least hope for someone to transfer $1 via Paypal than expect
many people to just donate arbitrary sums of money, which is much harder.
Help pay for my wedding! Go to my kickass website
cowboy neal retirement fund!!!!
And WTF is up with this having to wait 20 seconds crap before posting?!?!?!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Didn't you read the article?? Timothy mentioned Yet Another Foundation in the article.
Moderators, do your job and damn this karma whore straight to -1.
That says it all. The time invested into creating software; free, not free, whatever, that is the one cost which is most overlooked.
Send transgaming some dough for the new year- not only are they improving DirectX under Linux, but other useful Win32 APIs. In time, Wine may be a fully-featured Windows emulator!
æeee!
Do it for free, for the thrill of programming itself, or go work for Microsoft.
You could donate the the Poor CS Students Beer Fund. We all greatly appreciate any help you can give us in becoming more inebriated after long coding binges.
Not true, dummy. It's not a PR0N site.
It's called "pay for our software so we can pay the programmers..." I hear it works well. For example, Microsoft is not a "cubicle" company... everyone gets an office with a door. Companies can afford to give their workers rooms to "play" in on their breaks, too. But I guess that's the difference between paid workers and volunteers. Life's a sad story, isn't it?
And remember kiddies, coders love anonymously sent strippers... (or hookers for those of you in enlightened nations)
...if I'm ever in a porno, my stage name is going to be Alan Cox.
Theoretically, but you have to follow all kinds of regulations to do so:
http://new.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub52.pdf
Beer probably does not contain enough alcohol to count as a flammable liquid, but depending on the kind container you send it in (bottles, cans, etc...) you may be required to seal your beer inside plastic bags or foam padding.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
When it comes down to a choice between supporting my freedom to choose and supporting someone else in producing "Free" software, I will always pay myself first. These people developing "Free" software aren't starving, for the most part they are gainfully employed engineers writing Open source code for corporations. I have no problem with them doing that type of work, I only have a problem with them coming and begging for money.
Software isn't some inalienable right, though some would trick you into thinking it was then taking away your rights *cough*Stallman*cough*
Spend some money on yourself. If that means buying a Linux distro that you particularly enjoy (for me, I like SuSE), then *buy* it. Support the companies that give you what you want. Don't give money to beggars. There is no reciprocation with these "Foundations".
To me, this whole thing seems a bit shallow. sure i am writing to an OSDN site, coded on open-source slashcode, running on an open source webserver, but i think that the people behind the code are not who really needs the money. They are all educated enough to write copious amounts of software, and through this they could get jobs for money probably very easily (most of them probably do during the day anyways). But there are SO MANY PEOPLE who dont have the ability to get jobs, and who need the money to eat rather than get a fatter pipe or faster compiler. i just think that giving money to people who are in need of so much more is more important than free software.
You can also give to PerlMonks, using the appropriately named Offering Plate (they use Paypal but you can also just send a check).
Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em. (Terry Pratchett)
What someone needs to do is to setup a system
where people can easily move money from their
bank accounts to their web account. Once this is
setup, and FDIC insured and etc., people
can then move small amounts of money to support
these causes Timothy talks about helping.
This way, you eliminate and Visa charges and etc.. It would help if such a business
was non-profit so that people could just make
micro-payments without all the hassle
of worrying about their money and etc.
Just my 2 cents for a viable solution
Help pay for my wedding! Go to my kickass website
Free ways of helping are many much better than just £$ ways. Many small and new project need testers and especially _FEEDBACK_. If you have an idea that would make the little software project better, share it with thedevelopers. If you find a bug, make sure that you report it. If you think the programs great, tell that to the developer. I mean many projects die, because the developer thinks that the project isn't important. And if you really are feeling like helping, you could do graphics, sounds or programming. Everybody can help out in this effort.
IVAN Nethack is not the king anymore.
Of course it costs money, everything does.. so is free software really free for the end user.. Of course!!
So what can we do to make it all work out? If everyone does something in the community, everyone is getting something for free.. just as long as everyone does something good.
I try to do my part in it by developing a little software and bug fixing.
Why can't other people do the same and we can all have a free community??
I'm not sending money to companies as a 'charitable contribution'! Let them figure out their own way to make money if they want to run a business. The EFF is different, however, as I would expect them to fight for my civil rights to an extent, which should be free of limited control by 'shareholders.' I support businesses by using their stuff and maybe donating some time and energy to improving parts of their free products that I think need fixed or cleaned up, but I'm not Mr. Moneybags here.
I think one of the best and easiest way to support Free Software is to buy a box set (or "retail version" if you like) of your favourite Free Software (distros, apps, games).
;-)
Sure you can download an iso and burn as many copies as you like, and sure you "don't need no stinking manual". But by buying retail version you are saying directly to the developers, publishers and retailers that you use their software and like it enough to buy a copy. (And you can write it off as business software purchases when you file your tax
Plus your box set is great for lending out to friends & newbies (much more impressive than your blank CD-R). Or put it beside your computer at work (and let anyone borrow it), to subtly promote Free Software without being an anti-M$ nazis about it.
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
I just got a direct mailing from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asking for special holiday donations. For a gift of $50US or more, they'll throw in a T-Shirt with their new logo. I couldn't find the offer on their website, so I suppose it's limited to members. Anyway, I need a different outfit for work; the boss gets visibly upset whenever I wear my Computerworld "Shark Tank" T-shirt.
So the EFF will be getting my fifty bucks, because I figure if free software gets made illegal, there won't be anybody left for the rest of you to donate to.
Just bring a keg to the local LUG. Chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug. Now that's a liquid asset.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Like my stuff? Sure, its free -- but rent isn't.
Shamelessly begging for pocket change in the post-dot-com economy,
Bowie J. Poag
According to UPS [here] you can't ship any alcoholic beverages at all. But A-OK are sulfuric acid (up to 50% concentration), sodium hydroxide solution, and everyone's favorite, hydrofluoric acid (up to 60% concentration, but that's OK, it'll kill you anyway).
I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but there really is no economic reason for the success of any Open Source venture. There is no business model that will derive financial income from a product that cannot be sold. The true "success" comes from all people benefiting from the efforts of the few authors. Those authors benefit, too, of course, but only in the same "free (beer)" sense. Why should any give-away scheme (especially one as strongly held as the GPL) be able to make money?
Sure, Cygwin, RedHat, et al, have been making a go of it selling the side-stuff (support, servers, etc.) that some people want. And the GPL very explicitly permits charging for the physical distribution of the code. I think we may see companies such as these moving into the "selling distribution" model. And that's not evil, it's just the reality that this article mentions.
But then what are people willing to pay for a distro server? I just freshened some Cygwin stuff on my box here, and they gave me a list of servers to try. It did take a couple of tries to find a site willing to serve this stuff up. I can't say as I'd want the entire customer base of Cygwin knocking at my ports looking for 20MB each, either.
So, donations seem to be about the only way to make things run until someone sets up a paid-for-distro company. And even a distro company will have to "compete" with anyone offering to serve it up for free!
John
John
I support my free software by coding my own projects. I'm poor, too, so donate to me. Otherwise, I'd give up some money to my favorite OSS projects.
Here's some more of my comments on the OSS movement.
Zodiac Survey
Hey, if the Church of Bob exists, why can't we? We can house the huddled masses of homeless programmers, who only wish food, shelter, and computer with an Internet account, so that they can code their projects in peace. We shall worship our own code as our god. And we'd get a tax credit from our own government.
Zodiac Survey
Freenet has been taking donations for a while, and has already used some of these funds to hire two developers to work full-time on the project for two months each (for less money than they could earn at Starbucks). The project is nearing its next major release, 0.5, and could really use your help financially to allow more developers to devote more of their time to the project.
... but I need a paycheck first. The "new new economy" gots me down!
If you call three to a room with no window your own office. Cubicles are better than that. Former Microsofty.
I don't think many would agree that the Free Software Foundation is helping promote open source software. After the recent antics of RMS, it's clear that the he has no interest in promoting true "freedom" of software but rather trying to become the next Microsoft.
I don't feel that begging like this will really appeal to the masses who are interested in "free software." If one were to donate to these projects, buy a box, etc. it would eventually be as expensive, if not more, than supporting commercial software, which only has one price (i.e. the box sale). I'm simply going to buy a box and let the money make its way to the developers from there. Begging for more money from me will only make me move back to Windows.
You die too easily.
It may not be open source, but to us an end users, it is a free service.
I'll bet many of us use Google for work, and it makes a job easier. Being able to find a web page, or a usenet post or a graphic in a flash, with little advertising/bother has to be worth something. I wish they had a donate button, a few dollars would gladly go there.
Note that mailing is different from shipping. UPS and FedEx will gladly ship your New Castle, Jack Daniels, or whatever your juice of choice is. However, there are restrictions about sales of liquor from state to state, since states like to collect their sin taxes.
I guess that makes "can't jack off in your own office" one of the downsides to working at Microsoft.
Of course it costs money to develop and distribute software. Its good to see an Slashdot article highlighting this.
But more intriguing is the suggested solution. So there are various funds I can contribute to that will renumerate some or all of the people working on free software. That's interesting but surely it has a fatal flaw.
By pooling donations to be split amongst projects you are diminishing a lot of the power of your money. When I pay for a software package I am saying that I want this software package, not one of the many alternatives I could have bought. The one I chose may have features I want, it may have a better UI for me, it may be more reliable, it may be more compatible.
I vote with my money and that gives me a small but significant voice in which software gets the resources to continue to grow.
I don't want to give up this power. Software should conform to my needs as the end user. The market mechanism is an extremely good way for me to express my needs in a way that the software developers will take seriously.
This is a Good Thing [tm].
Why circumvent the market principle? Why disenfranchise users in this way?
Yes, I am advocating selling software to cover its cost of development, distribution and continued production. You know, like we've always done for software and pretty much all other goods and services. Yay for selling good software for a fair price.
Sailing over the event horizon
I personally don't donate to ANY organization unless the overhead expenses are clearly stated in their donation literature. On SPI's site for example, I can't find any record of how much of donations go to administration or how much the leaders of the organization are paid.
I think a lot of people would be shocked by how corrupt a lot of high-profile organizations are, and how small the percentage of donations go to the intended receivers. If SPI or any other organization has nothing to hide, then let them state the facts so I know I'm not getting ripped off.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
There is no reason free software developers shouldn't get paid. The problem is that we have no system in place to conduct the process.
Imagine, for instance, if instead of all these companies paying billions to Microsoft for Office, if just a few million was spent paying free software developers to make a comparable product instead. I would be willing to bet that the resulting product from the free software developers would be of better quality, despite the huge difference in the amount of money involved. The moral of the story? Free software developers could work just like normal programmers (high salaries and all), and develop public works for all to enjoy. There is no reason we shouldn't get paid.
Donations are a good first step, but it should not end there. I want big fat office buildings full of free software developers, maybe publically government funded (like the Artists and Painters of yore), or perhaps kick-started by a company with money. The money needs to come first, then the product. That's the only way it would work and make sense.
My perfect world:
- company A needs a product, so they contact the FSF or something.
- FSF solicits the concept to other companies that might be interested (company A could do this also, petition-style)
- All the companies pitch in money (up front) to the FSF to have the software developed.
- The finished product is put in a museum, where all can make copies.
As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no downside to this system, other than that the older companies selling software will get the shaft.
Another problem you might think of is that you have to wait for the software to be developed. This is no different than the current system in place. My hope is that this proposed system would be used for all software in the future, not just as counter-projects to MS software (would still be worthwhile though).
If donations pay the bills, then I think things should stay the way they are. Hell, the FSF has been working almost entirely off of donations for over 15 years now. I'd say that makes it a fairly credible "business model".
For free software developers especially, paying the rent and getting food and clothing are really all that's needed. Beyond that, I don't think there's any reason to FORCE your customers into giving you money. I mean we're all amigos here, right? Theoretically we rarely need to be forcing each other to do anything.
If, on the other hand, working off donations isn't actually working, then there are other business models to consider, such as selling free software and support (see SuSE, Red Hat, Cygnus and others), or selling "special" products (see Ximian, your local prostitutes).
Screw that...I need some damn coders. I don't have time for this coding shit :)
But, seriously, I really appeciate the thank you e-mails I get from people, but I just wish somebody was motiviated enough to help me out with some of this work. I get a lot of help from translators, but I need some coders badly.
Zodiac Survey
No Mexicans either, but that's because they don't work in the future either.
Besides the relative few who work at work on their Free software projects, the programmers, project managers, web-site maintainers, documentation jockeys and QA volunteers behind the programs we enjoy every day don't seem to be in it for the money, so much as the thrill of releasing new software, a desire to make their own world a little better, and for plain old fun. The staffers and volunteers who put long hours and dedication into organizations trying to safeguard online freedoms are also obviously interested in rewards that go way beyond salaries. This New Year's, consider giving them a little money anyhow.
As a software engineer who is seeing his available software markets diminished by people who are doing it 'for a laugh' instead of as a career, why the hell should I donate money to them? That way, not only am I getting my markets shrunk by 'free' alternatives, but I'm also giving away what I *can* make to the people who are making my life more difficult.
Thanks, but no thanks. If they want to do it for the good of their health, then let them do it WITHOUT any financial support. After all, if they supposedly don't need to make any money from their work, they surely don't need any money to live on, right?
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Donate NOW, before the New Year, and not only will those non-profit organizations benefit, but you have another itemized tax deduction for the year 2001. It's a smart move!
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Walnut Creek FreeBSD CDROM subscription money go in part to the team?
:-)
I have had a subscription to it for a few years now, and I thought part of that money went to them.
If not, it is still nice to get the latest version on CD every few months
Before I start, I just want to make it clear that I think that if you want to give money to an organization because you like the software they've developed then great - it's your choice. But the thing that bugs me is when I start hearing the long, bleading heart story of the sacrifices a programmer has made and that I should feel like I need to give money. Too many times I've heard the argument that if I don't like the way something's being developed, tough. My choices are to not use it, find an alternative, or write my own program. I've also heard the arguments that the wasteful parallel development of similar software (KDE, Gnome, etc.) is the developers choice, they're not getting paid for it, it's a hobby, they'll do whatever they want. I couldn't agree more, but then don't turn around and have someone else try to guilt trip me into giving money. I'd be more than happy to pay for a well developed OS, rather than the patchwork quilts offered by Redhat and the like (and MS is out of the question). I think QNX could be an awesome desktop OS if they'd just put effort into it. All I wanted for Christmas was a decent OS!
I believe that the best way to help your favorite open-source project is to get involved. I can think of countless times that I've heard people whine, moan, and complain about the fact that the open-source application $FOO doesn't have feature $BAR; but the person who wants $BAR isn't willing to either code it or pay someone to.
Free software isn't about getting something for free; it's about the freedom to modify programs to do what you want them to do, not what some arbitrary programmer in a distant company wants you to do. It's about freedom -- not about saving money (although that does appear to be a fringe benefit).
Even if you don't code, chances are you can get someone involved in the project to write something for you by taking care of something they need. Documentation is the first thing that comes to mind; many open-source projects are sadly lacking in this department, and a well-written manual is worth a mountain of coder time. You can also help to provide server space and/or bandwitdh for the project, or to donate hardware for the coders-in-question to use.
The point is that free software is a community effort; and if you aren't willing to be an equal participant of that community, you really don't have much of a say.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
If that's the choice that you leave them, most programmers will choose eating over providing you with free software.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
project: http://linuxmonkey.freeservers.com
And what happens when the project goes over budget? What happens when the project doesn't deliver what was promised? What happens to those people or companies that invested money and expected/needed/depended on the software?
Nobody is responsible or bounded to deliver anything in this scheme. No company could ever justify spending any amount of money in this kinda situation. An individual would be even less likely to.
That's because server space, bandwidth, coffee, electricity, computers, and workspace all cost money.
I seriously doubt these programmers don't already have a computer and workspace. Server space, bandwidth, and electricity are free thanks to sourceforge.
If the work you do benefits others more than the alternatives, there is a way to make money doing that work. Find that way, and you can quit begging others for money.
They're not a non-profit, but http://www.transgaming.com/ could have the keys to Linux conquering the desktop. Sign up for a membership. I personally don't even use it, but I'm signed up because I think it will help out.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Were you a temp? Most of the M-serfs I'm aware of have their own offices with windows. Most of the M-temps I know describe the situation you did.
What they should have is one entity that you can send money to that ticks off diffrent projects. Like gaim,xmms, gimp, KDE etc.
Unfortunately I do not have enough money to donate ca$h, but I still give food to the needing using http://www.thehungersite.com/.
Someone should start a similar service where one can donate bandwidth/hardware/etc by clicking and watching banners, similar to The Hunger Site.
That would be neat, I could add another good cause to my daily donation procedure.
I'd gladly click a daily banner if it'd help the guys down at OpenBSD.
-5!{
Every time a new release of OpenBSD is out I purchase it. Then I donate it to the local Library and write it off. I think this is a win win situation all around. If more people would do this, more people might experience a different OS other then Windows or MacOS.
Very funny, Hillary Rosen posting as AC.
I fully expect to be flamed, moderated down, and generally discredited for this comment, but someone needs to say it, because it's important. Money? To heck with money. I have a job that pays for my food and housing and computer. I'll write free software whether you give me money or not. Money will not make a difference to me or make my New Year happier. Having a woman pay attention to me would.
The world is full of volunteers who work tirelessly to write free software, defend the public good in the copyright wars, and promote technical education for everyone, all without asking anything in return. A great many of these volunteers are frustrated, lonely, young heterosexual men. You aren't a techie, but you want to help? Wonderful. You can donate money, but it isn't what we really want. You can go write some documentation, but actually, that's a lie, because really you do have to be a techie in order for the results to be worthwhile. What can you do that's actually possible and would make a difference?
Go find someone who'll appreciate you, and let them know in a very personal way that you respect and admire what they do. Date a geek tonight.
The same logic can and should apply to geeks who aren't male heterosexuals, and nothing in this response should be taken to limit the application, blah, blah, blah, etc. That's not the point.
I'm quite sure there's downsides to it. Who the hell is going to care if a politician announces he's going to push for public funding towards free software? as opposed to the usual pitches like education, social services (well in the UK at least), public transport and so forth.
And if you exempt software from market forces, quality IS going to go down the tube. Because we'll get fourty different office suites, a few thousand MP3 organising systems and toy window managers and programming languages and no central focus. Sorry folks, open source is all well and good, and on a small to medium scale it can work; I, for instance, use KDE, I think its architecture and homogeneous design is a testament to the capabilities of open source developers. But for every such gem there's going to be hundreds of time sinks. You're going to need a PHB in there somewhere to focus people into a cohesive unit, so that instead of implementing some weird Emacs mode, a developer can help with a database project, or an IPC framework or hell SOMETHING. And that the entire system functions as a unit too - Debian's probably the best distribution in terms of actually having an overall plan to it but it's really at what I see as the fundamental scalability limit.
For other examples, look at Linux. Great OS huh? yeah sure, but look at LKML. The old protracted bickering over which VM is better continues to grow. Statistics and patches and optimisations and forced commits all go on and yet there's no progress. The 2.4 tree is absolute shit - I run it on my home server and it crashes every few weeks. Every few weeks?? what the hell is this shit, Windows 98? I've seen better uptimes on Win2K boxes! A 2.2 box I admin over in the US that runs as an IRC server once hit 130+ days of uptime before it crashed due to a power outage. Isnt 2.4 supposed to be a stable tree?
Anyways, I digress. The point is there's things open source is good for, and there's things commercial software is good for; I like Linux and all but I dont buy all this Stallman zealotry about the whole thing. I'd be happier seeing a bound and chained Microsoft, but equally so I dont think stuff like, say, Oracle, could ever be the product of open source coders. Say what you will about the arrogance of Oracle's CEO or whatever, point is it's the best in the market, and unfortunately enterprise level apps still don't run anything open source on the high level because open source initiatives simply lack the resources to agressively develop something like this. Open source, however, does produce well engineered foundations, such as the GNU toolset, which is pretty much standard these days.
But, hey, what do I know. I'll be interested to see some counter-examples to this though.
Yeah, except All Your Money Are Belong To Bill Gates, not the poor programmers.
Heh...what am I saying? They are getting paid gobs of money to write garbage code! And when you're that deep in the corporate scheme of things, who needs accountability? Hell, the entire Outlook department should have been fired for putting VBScript compatibility in their clients!
At least with OSS, you can yell at some person who's in charge of X module for X application. I've talked to Alan Cox before. Alan Cox, the main guy working on many, many things in the Linux kernel. I'm sure many people have talked to Alan Cox before. Have you talked to a main programmer for Windows or any of its seperate parts? Can you bitch at him if something goes wrong?
Zodiac Survey
Some would say that interests like Red Hat and (*shudders to say this here*) Andover.net are just parasites. Free Software and Open Source would exist without them. They simply suck up resources and attention away from other viable projects that aren't trying to suck the money and life out of competitors.
Witn Andover.net, for example, they've now succeeded in crowding a huge number of Open Source projects under their Sourceforge umbrulla. If and when they fail and shut down, they'll take with them tons and tons of energy.
Decentralize the projects, people. Stop letting a few ambitous guys crowd you into their sphere of influence.
Isn't that quite pathetic?
The part that annoys me about working at Microsoft is the mandatory vibrating butt plug and other stuff I just made up.
Carry on.
You made that up???
Bastard. Although, I really shouldn't complain, I like it a lot more than I thought I would have.
http://www.linuxfund.org
:-)
This is a great organization that contributes funds to open source development. Best of all, you can get a cobranded credit card that gives proceeds to them, and it has a swanky penguin logo that gets lots of nice comments when you use it.
Josh Woodward
I'll just send 'em my kung-fu collection! for those times when you are just lacking the inspiration :P
Imperium et libertas
Autocracy and freedom
last time i checked Patrick Volkerding and his staff were in serious trouble and started a fund as one of the first companies and though i hope they are doing a bit better now with Slack8 out and the store, and Sourceforge paying the traffic, i still believe they could use some boosters.
Patrick has been doing a wonderful work during the last years and why not help him keeping one of the first (and IMHO best) Linux Distributions up and running?
cu,
Lispy
Mandrake, Redhat, SuSE and other have been selling distros for years. There's nothing in the GPL that prevents anyone from making money from code. I think you have Open Source confused with something else.
Donate the time to ask your company to buy a reiserfs service contract. (Lycos-Europe will tell you it is very happy it bought a service contract, and that our service is excellent.) Estimate 1% of the storage hardware cost that is used for reiserfs (you don't need to be more than roughly accurate, and only need to update the number once a year), and that will get you a priority service contract better than what you could get from a proprietary software vendor (with us the code authors are the ones who answer your emails.) You can use paypal at www.namesys.com/support.html, or send a check, or whatever your accounting department likes to do. Take the time to be as careful to buy service contracts on mission critical free software as you would to buy service contracts on proprietary products, and there will be lots more free software in this world.
Most projects are developped on spare time, not during the daily work time. Even if your free software projects are used by the company you are working for, pointy hair bosses won't let you improve it as a part of your regular job. They just enjoy their network works with cheap software. They enjoy to have the app developper in their employees because they know who will be the responsible if the software goes wrong with that app.
... The boss wants me to add specific stuff to a free software project, even demanding deadlines, but he does want this to be done only at home, on spare time ("developping free software is a game for teenagers, let them play but we don't pay them for that. We pay them to make profit from free software, not to help it.") . I'm sure this situation is very, very, veyr common.
If you want to help developpers, write to the company they are working for and tell that you enjoy the software. PHBs will be happy ("ah? some potential customer? He heard about us in a tiny piece of software that one of our employees is working on, on his spare time?) and maybe they will allow the developper to spend some time on the project during the regular job time...
The developper will be paid for his work, the PHB will be happy and users will get new versions of the product...
Really, as a developper, being granted to work on free software on my daily job time would be a dream. Right now, coding is only possible after 11pm and before 8am
{{.sig}}
And if you exempt software from market forces, quality IS going to go down the tube. Because we'll get fourty different office suites, a few thousand MP3 organising systems and toy window managers and programming languages and no central focus.
... just as long as you are saving as "MS-DOS" text and not some other kind of text...
This is totally right. With Open Source, you get tons of incompatible versons of basically the same thing. With one corperate souce for your software, you will NEVER have this problem.
Considering office suites, with Open Source, you have Star Office, Applixware, KOffice, and many more to chose from. It's so confusing! and most of these are compatible, but not always 100% compatible. With Microsoft you only have a single one: Office XP, nothing else, it's easy!
...Oh, wait, I forgot, you also have Office 2000 still around...
...Um, hold on a second, some people are still using Office 97 and 95...
...Ah, and I forgot about those people using the various service packs and each of them, not to mention that some of those versions are "professional" editions and some are "home office" and "small buisness"...
And maybe some losers are still back in the stone ages with Windows 3.11, did that even HAVE office back then? But, BUT all of these office suites from Microsoft are 100% compatible. 100%! (in "save as text" mode)
... er
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
There is no piracy in Open Source. I know you know that, but it's an important point.
The idea I had was to set up a site where people who want features or functionality added to some piece of open source software could post their requests along with a "bid" which would be held in escrow (in interest-bearing accounts) for whoever fulfilled the requirements. Requestors could pool their bids to make it more worthwhile for whoever decided to take up the project. Ideally, the site would be able to cover costs using the interest earned on the bids.
Obviously, this idea could be expanded to include links to many OSS projects and (ideally) their dependencies in an easily searched/browsed format. Sort of a one-stop OSS deal.
Anyway, that's the skeleton of my idea. Unfortunately I don't have the time or resources to do it myself. If anyone's interested, the email address above is valid. According to SBC I can get 6M DSL at my residence, so I can provide a physical location (assuming they'd allow hosting, although I honestly can't think what else I would do with all that bandwidth).
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Let me see if I understand you here: Andover and Red Hat are milking the resources of the open source community for their own commercial gain? The last I heard, no one is forced to use their resources.
Just compare the Andovers and the Red Hats with the way the major commercial software houses (like Micro$oft) do their business: by actually screwing their paying customers with buggy, non-secure products and then hiding behind a teflon-coated license agreement.
I know which ones would get my money, time and support...
Maybe if send money to Yggdrasil's Paypal account, you'll get your subscription.
Or travel back in time, either way.
For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, read "The Road Ahead", produced in collusion with Bill Gates.
/., pay $0.01)
In there, he makes the point repeatedly about the importance of micropayments - and Passport is clearly the infrastructure for Microsoft's vision for micropayments.
Which would most *definitely* apply here, no?
I don't like the idea any more than you do, but what other micropayment options do you see on the horizon? (Read a page of
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Here is a letter I sent to the IETF last night.
It provides a revenue stream for copyright holders
online across filesharing networks, but includes a
revenue for software providers -- including Open Source Software.
Greetings,
I would like float a suggestion for creating a sustainable
model for file sharing that permits copyrighted information (music,
literature, artworks, etc) to be shared among users whilst supporting
payments to the copyright holders.
As you probably are aware, organizations such the RIAA and
the MPAA are currently on the warpath to shut down file sharing
networks (such a napster, gnutella, etc), and replace them with a
new system that will probably only favor its own members. I find
this possibility quite alarming as it wont address the needs of the
community, or strike a fair balance with independent performers.
My own main motivation for engaging this issue is sheer
terror. I am terrified that draconian, freedom destroying laws such
as the SSSCA will be imposed upon Americans, and through the WTO, on
the rest of the world*. I am also terrified of the companies involved,
who have openly threatened the community with its insistence on
imposing copyright protection technologies that remove a users
basic rights.
Lastly, I would never forgive myself if I sat on my
hands and did not act on this idea.
In a nutshell, what I would suggest is the creation of a
payment service that is independent of any software company, that
tracks sales of copyrighted works across file sharing networks.
This payment service would have to be a Public Utility, and would
need to be accountable to the global community. It would also need
to be completely open and transparent. No shady back room deals.
The payment service must also permit the free sharing of public
data. In this instance, the file sharing software would default
back to its normal (read: current) mode of operation.
Now here's the catch. You could not simply 'impose' such a
solution on users and file sharing software providers. They would
simply reject it. So rather than imposing, why not offer an incentive
to support the payment service by reserving a portion of the sale
to the parties involved. In my view, the main parties involved are:
1) The copyright holder.
2) The software provider.
3) The user(s) who provide storage space for the content.
4) The payment service (it could not be done for free).
To draw the analogy to a classical retail model, the user(s)
provide the 'shelf space' where the goods are advertised. The software
acts as the conduit to conduct the transfer, and lastly, of course, the
copyright holder provides the content.
Now consider a case for a (simplified) classical transaction.
In the classical model, the retailer buys the quantity of goods from
the copyright holder. The goods are transported to the premises by the
courier service and the cost of transport is added to the price. Finally,
the retailer adds her own margin to the product, and places in on her
store shelves. Joe Public comes in and buys the goods at the advertised
price.
Now consider a case for a current Napster transaction:
First the user downloads the goods from another user. The user then
places the content in the outgoing directory. Another user comes
along and downloads the content from that directory.
Now what is missing in the napster transaction as compared to the
classical model is the exchange of money. There is a reason for this.
There is no incentive or framework to support payment and the supplier
(and the software provider) get nothing from the transaction. Thus
currently, the copyright holder gets nothing as well.
Not only is this illegal, it is an unworkable situation.
If permitted to follow through to its ultimate destination, artists
will avoid the internet, or worse, go broke and receive no reward
for their efforts. A cultural wasteland would evolve where people
no longer want to be artists or musicians, because there will be no
future in it. A grim future indeed.
Now compare this with a future situation where the
infrastructure has been supplied and incentive has been reserved
for the participants. The incentive is payment for participation.
First the user downloads the content using payment aware software.
The software contacts the payment service and announces the
transaction. The cost of the transaction is deducted from their
account (or barred in the case of insufficient funds). The transaction
is raised at the payment service, and relevant details are sent back
to the user. The user then downloads the content from the serving
machine(s) which is also using payment aware software. The user receives
the content and the transfer details are sent back to the payment
service and the transaction is completed. At the payment service,
the servers correlate who was involved in the transaction, divides
up the payment between:
1) The Artist (85%)
2) The software provider (5% - 2.5% each if different client/server software is used)
3) The user(s)** who supplied the content (5%).
4) The payment service (5%).
The percentage figures are not cost calculated as yet
since I haven't designed the boiler plate yet and estimated costs.
However, I think it would be important to make the cuts equal so
that arguments of who gets a bigger slice are eliminated. This way,
there is no argument about who gets the biggest slice, the Artists
must for a very important reason. Distributing content over the
internet as opposed to classical methods is far more cost effective.
Distributed file sharing services are extremely efficient at
disseminating data. Thus the costs of delivering goods is very cheap,
thus more transactions can be handled in a small amount of time.
However, the biggest question is does this survive the
incentive litmus test?
Q1. Would the file sharing software writers be inclined to add
support for this?
A1. I would like to think so. Considering they haven't received
a brass razzoo on their software, suddenly having a stable income
stream would be a boon to them. This also includes Open Source
projects who have been devoid of a reasonable business model since
the beginning. It would create a very different outlook on the entire
software field. However, I would like to add that Open Source projects
would probably still get ripped off with unscrupulous web masters and
admins rewriting their own accounts into the software at the expense
of the project. However, most Open Source supporters would probably
do the right thing and let them have their dough.
Q2. Would the users want to use this?
A2. Again I would like to think so. If you dangle the offer of
getting paid to run a piece of software on your computer to share
files around, I would be inclined to say yes. This would be the murky
part though, some would rather abuse than use. However, considering
the lively hood of the software supplier would be counting on their
co-operation, Joe Public might not get a choice in this regard.
Open source software users might be a different story, but I will
cover this another time.
However, I do believe most normal people are honest, and
really would like to support their favorite artist. Mostly since
they know that if they don't, their artists will stop performing.
As for myself, I would be preferentially using this system to
supply my own music needs in future. I don't mind paying for music
when I know that the majority of the money goes straight to the
artist.
Q3. Would the artists support this?
A3. I would say so. Since this would be an open system, any
artists who has produced original work would be welcome, with no
need for them to hand over the copyright on their work. Likewise
authors, painters, graphic designers, etc. The payment service
could also act as a 'conduit' between users who wish to publish
an artists work, and the artists themselves. Once placed in contact
with each other, the payment service can step back and allow
each party to negotiate directly.
Q4. Would the publishing houses support this?
A4. It really doesn't matter what the publishers think. Its
the artists themselves who create the content, not the publishers.
I dare say that initially, they would reject this idea out of hand,
which is why I wouldn't be bothered telling them about it. However,
when they finally figure out this would probably be the only way to
be paid reliably for their content, they would probably come around
in the long run.
Anyways, that's the skinny. All comments and criticisms welcome.
I am sending this info to your group since I consider you people to be
the best qualified to judge and comment on this concept. Considering
that you all value your freedom, as I value my freedom.
I have lots more stuff on this, but that's enough for an
introduction...
BTW, don't laugh, but I have tentitively called this the
'MilleniPay' system, for want of a better name.
Of course, this document is copyright Michael H. Voase (c) 2001.
Released to you under the terms of the GNU public license version 2 or
optionally any later version.
All rights are reserved to prevent more unscrupulous individuals
thieving it and turning it into a money printing machine.
Cheers Mik.
* In my own country, for example, the US has imposed sanctions on
the importation of lambs from Australia. For the Australian government
to ever get these sanctions lifted, we would need to join a 'free'
trading block. The conditions of which, as you guessed, are adopting
US style laws such as the DMCA and probably the UCITA as well.
** Some file sharing software uses 'multipoint' download to speed
the process up. It would need to be supported, and adds an extra
layer of complexity, but considering the speed of computers these
days, I still think its possible. My own suggestion for splitting
the payment is based on percentage of file supplied. If one user
supplies 25% of the content, they receive 25% of the 5% cut with
the rest going to the other users involved.
Being a geek is not cool?
:)
Where the hell do you live? Out in the boondocks of Tennessee?
Provided you don't live in an area where people with missing teeth get together each night to 'drink sum beer' and 'watch dem der naaaascaaars', being a geek tends to be rather cool.
Oh, and try growing long hair and a goatee.
Seriously. Since growing my hair long, I've had more chicks flirting with me in a month than I previously have had in a year.
The problem is proper filtering, once you get your long hair and goatee. See, some moronic girls will insist you look like that one Backdoor, er, Backstreet Boy.
The ones you want to keep though, you'll know right away, because they'll scream, "Aragorn!" and immediately hug you.
Note that you can get a t-shirt if you join the EFF and donate/pay $65. Not exactly free, but well worth it. The website is:
www.eff.org
T-Shirt: https://www.eff.org/support/joineff-cc.html
(midway down mentions it). Cheers!
I gave $100 to the FSF last year and they are unbelievably nice to their donors. While I was writing my check this year I got an X-mas card from the FSF (as I am sure many /.ers did). Anyway, it was also nice to see my name listed in the same donor category as M$ (and no it wasn't the highest category!)
Well, we're always open to donations at protonic.com, although we're not a software company. We like to think we provide a valuable service, though :)
:)
Actually, what we need way more of than money is volunteer hours. If anyone is interested in helping out people with computer problems over the net, drop by and fill out our form.
Money: http://www.protonic.com/donate.php
Time: http://www.protonic.com/volunteer.php
Mod me down if you want, but I figured it was worth a try
I pledge allegiance to the Flag
Of the United States of America
One Nation, Sliding into Tyranny,
With Liberty and Justice,
For Those Who Can Afford It.
Adobe still needs to be punished for instigating the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov. He's now free, but Adobe never paid his legal costs and still supports the vile DMCA. Is there any way to support Gimp development financially? Are there other free software applications looking for financial support that offer viable alternatives to Adobe's core revenue-generating applications?
Whatever domain name servers you are using are giving the wrong IP address. Try 209.242.124.241 instead.
That's fine and dandy, but the point that you miss is that we want the source code to what we pay for and use. That alone makes all the difference in the world.
It's a really simple but extraordinarily crucial issue that cannot be over-emphasized.
They can beg all they want. If you don't like it, just say no.
- If you prefer a different Free Software organization, then donate to that.
- If you prefer to give money to the poor, then donate to them.
- If you prefer to write your own Free or proprietary code, then you have the freedom to do just that.
There's no need to make life more difficult than it already is.Yes, but they control people.
I'd rather work in a cubicle.
The power of "open source" is its diversity and parallel nature.
Admittedly, if every open source project had a profitable business model, that would be an answer that fit every projects problem.
Since differences between projects is as much an attribute of open source as being able to read the code, there would have to be infinite numbers of different, successful, open source business models to fit everyone.
As painful as the present moment is, business wise, I much prefer that people and projects seek their own success. That way the best idea wins.
"Best Idea" isn't just technology. The Beta vs VHS argument usually forgets that while Beta was and is far better technology, it's "closed source" nature is what killed it in the consumer marketplace.
There's a lesson to us all.
Joyous solstace, all.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Audiogalaxy has a Gold program. This program lets you download an unlimited number of songs from fast servers at a cheap fee per month. If you choose the cheapest (per month) option, the charge ($2.95) is automatically billed to your credit card each month until you decide to cancel.
.02 from a Computer/Business person.
This sounds promising. If the Linux community chooses this model, the software can remain free as in beer/speech, but downloading from the server would be charged, either per (insert period of time), or (insert each piece of software), or (insert how many megabytes downloaded). Hopefully the connections would be faster than the norm to make the additional charge worth the cost.
Just
You Silly! WINE is not an emulator! (n/t)
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick with open source software without a business model. I'm even suspicious of non-commercial open source efforts whose primary motivation seems to be for someone to get project lead experience or to collect lots of money from donations. And too many resources (including too many programmers) lead to projects that are overly complex (commercial software suffers from the same problem).
Open source software works best when it's done by a few tightly knit programmers working together, developing simple, innovative software. The megaprojects, the projects with commercial tie-ins, and all the other stuff, I can do without. If I wanted that, I wouldn't care about "open source", I'd just use the commercial stuff that I have already paid for.
I'd love to read this, but please, please, use line breaks. I can't read it in its current form. Why not keep a journal with this stuff in it? I'd love to read updates to this stuff without loading 500k pages of -1 comments.
god. Never fucking mind about that whole journal thing. The damn Last Journal doesn't show up on the reply page, which made me think you didn't have one.
Not if you have a floppy drive; you can boot off one (1) 1.44 meg floppy, and install the rest of the system over the network.
Or, if you have a CD burner, just download the 2.88 meg cdrom image, burn to CD, and install the rest off the network.
I still buy the CDs, because they're great things to have, but they're hardly necessary for an install.
I don't see why everybody just doesn't store an ISO of their favorite distro in a public directory accessible by Morpheus. I'd love to download Linux via Morpheus.
Let's see -- MS offers me a license to usable software today that 90%+ of businesses use to run their day to day operations. Businesses that have a business that makes money -- where the software is a product they use to assist them in their core business.
Seems like a fair deal to me.
And anyone who claims that open source gives the end user the ability to make the code do what they want is correct and wrong. Correct because the end user can. Wrong because USERS DON'T WANT to modify code. Users want to use software that works.
MS is not going to be in the bird seat forever. They are not the great evil. Their day will pass.
Right now their is no viable alternative for the corporate user for the desktop. Arguably MS is superior for many server functions as well.
Deliver what the users want. A product that just works. That doesn't force them to program.
Deliver what the developers want. A platform that is widely adopted that the developer can leverage.
Doooohhh.....
Frederik Grøn Schack
Note: I do not work for Audiogalaxy; I am just a satisfied customer.
This legal music downloads site has a program that lets you download an unlimited number of songs from fast servers at a cheap fee per month. If you choose the cheapest (per month) option, the charge ($2.95) is automatically billed to your credit card each month until you decide to cancel.
This sounds promising. If the Linux community chooses this model, the software can remain free as in beer/speech, but downloading from the server would be charged, either per (insert period of time), or (insert each piece of software), or (insert how many megabytes downloaded). Hopefully the connections would be faster than the norm to make the additional charge appealing to consumers.
Just a rough count, there were like 13 different apps/projects/foundations in the /. post. And those are just the ones that were directly called out! This makeshift group of many small projects and organizations betrays the disorganization that is omnipresent in open source and free software development efforts. I have paid for free software, registered my shareware, made micropayments to developers, and submitted changes and bugfixes to open source software. The thing that strikes me is that we don't need a better way to pay all these organizations; we need a better way to organize!
IMHO if there were a strategy developed by a few people or even a few groups that looked at a global view--these are the software needs of our society, and we will develop A, B, and C because there are no (free / alternate) products currently available to meet these needs--it would show that at least there is some looking ahead. Instead we have a bunch of different organizations, pushing many different flavors of the same operating system, two entirely different windowing / gui systems, two different wordprocessor / spreadsheet / presentation solutions, and countless other efforts, some with narrow focus and others that seem to repeat what's already been tried because for some reason the new developer thinks they have a better idea / approach / design / open source licensing model.
It seems to me that we are hunting elephants with buckshot. One concentrated rifle shot between the eyes will take down the big guys, but buckshot will only make them angry!
Until such a group is formed to help organize and focus the efforts of open source / free software development, we will still have a bunch of small disorganized companies wanting money, a bunch of very talented people programming in their spare time better code than what Microsofties get paid quite well for, and a few behemoth companies setting the direction of the computing world as a whole, and making a ton of money to boot.
Check out our infosecurity industry blog: http://securitymusings.com/
Panda Mail (www.pandamail.net), the free POP3 browser-email-checker thingy takes donations via an amazon wishlist. They have no ad banners and seem to be struggling to keep the site alive.
Yes. A couple hundred helpless, disarmed, law abiding individuals held hostage then killed by thugs out-numbered 5 and more to 1, who happened to have box-cutters.
The passengers on Flight 93 fought back, saved lives, and died anyway. They deserve hero status.
One citizen with their own firearms on any of those flights would have saved the lives of that plane, at least, and more likely hundreds or thousands of lives since 3 of the 4 planes reached their destinations.
Every advocate of gun control has the blood of those who died in the September 11th attack on their hands. Oh, but the hypocritical cries from those same mouths now for "air martials" to (surprise surprise) carry GUNS on airplanes to defend them from terrorists...
Oh, save me save me from the folly of my belief in victim disarmement, but what ever you do don't challange my assumptions!
You cowards make me sick, and endanger my life and others with your cowardice.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I always thought
everything2.com had something interesting going on. A user can write a job request, either a feature request / bug fix / etc. in some kind of a message board system, and then people can upvote or downvote this idea - upvote to say I will reserve money right now for future payment to whoever does this job, or a downvote to say I will pay money to see that this job not be done. The users will have to pay for their votes, and thus the money indirectly goes to the programmers who do the work. Also, this will give incentive to programmers to add a feature / remove bug that is most demanded. Of course this is just a rough idea. there would be a need for moderators, elected or employed, and a system to correct possible flaws. People can even choose to pay the voters who seem to do a good job, with either votes to use, or for cash.
In essence, a complex system where payment is decided very democratically, in a decentralised and open manner. Run with the idea.
We "donate" money/resources/time/etc not because we want to thank or subsidize free software developers for code they have arleady written. No, the reason is instead that we are greedy for new free software, with more delicious features.
So this really has little to do with charity- its capitalism. And its even more pure than than monetary capitalism- we trade value for value with no intermediary.
If you are lucky enough to have stock that has gone up in value (particularly founder's stock that has in effect a near-zero basis) you can get a double tax deduction in many cases for donating it rather than money.
The reason is you get to deduct the full value of the stock as a charitable donation, and you never pay the capital gains tax on it you would have paid if you sold it.
You need to have had it for a year. Contact a tax advisor for the full scoop.
If you do more than a tiny amount of charitable giving you can also set up a donor-advised fund (there is probably one in your area, do a web search). There you give stock to the fund (double deduction) and then have it dole out money to your favourite charities as you like it.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Seattle Community Network accepts donations through helping.org. There is no transaction fee as all costs are paid for by the AOL Time Warner Foundation. If any of these projects are 1) actually charities and 2) reading this, check out helping.org or some similar service. It stinks less than Amazon.
.NOT project and see what they say about reading non-published MS memos.
(off topic) And to those who say we need to be equal, involved partners in the development of free software, get a clue. Some people can code, some people can pay. I doubt you've contributed as much to Linux as, say, Linus, or as much to Emacs as RMS (not that you'd notice extra code in Emacs.) Should you limit your usage to the level of your involvement? What about your grandma? If she can't code, should she be allowed to use Linux?
Others can't be allowed to help at all. Should a Microsoft employee not be allowed to use FreeBSD? I guarantee you that FreeBSD wouldn't want someone who has access to NT internals submitting code to their project. If you doubt this, check out the GNU
LimeWire has taken an interesting approach to this. They had been getting a lot of donations through Amazon. Now they are providing a professional version for $6 which just takes out banner ads and opt-out spyware with 6 months worth of free updates. The code is open source but it is a lot easier to just use the installers. www.limewire.com
Why did you lump the EFF in with the FSF? They have little in common.
IMHO anyone who values his/her civil liberties is already a member of EFF. (If you're not, please get your credit card ready before going to their web site.) They don't write software.
I happen to think that the FSF does good work too, and deserves to be much higher up your list of developers of useful software. "Linux" wouldn't exist without the FSF. But a typical Windows user probably wouldn't care - whereas civil liberties concern everyone.
"All those in favor of losing their rights, do nothing."
why not stop [total boycott] paying the felonious softwar gangsters [father william et al] to reNT grossly defective InFactDead m$ payper liesense bugwear from them? things would soon 'pick up' everywhere, & the good guise would not have to behave as beggars [see also: garmeNT district freed after decades of being held hostage by felonious gangsters]
happy happy GNU year, from all of us, to all of you.
Well, some I use and have allready/will donate to are:
.ISO for ages now.
:-)
- smoothwall linux (thankyou to the 12+ people who sent in RAID equipment when their www box went south)
- everydns.org. Use 'em and enjoy free (beer) with 100% reliability - nice people too.
- openbsd - Like Theo or not, these guys have been providing versatile and secure hosts for the cost of an
- apache - If you need an explanation, well...
BTW; you can support apache throuh buying a cool shirt or cap at copyleft.net
- Don't forget to pay the Microsoft tax on your new factory PC/Server too this year
Ok the last one was a joke
Okay, you can't donate and you already help coding or writing docs. Why not teach someone how to use? More users mean more attention by other developers, companies and the media.
When Software Developer Company XYZ sees Linux rising from the 1% user base, maybe will start to develop for it.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
I dont know how many of you will get down here but a specific programmer comes to mind who I'm sure would appriciate the donation. I dont think he has a paypal link but I bet if you e-mail him (I think I will just have to do so myself) he'd tell you where you could send your donation.
Muhri! www.muhri.net, I am not he but he is the author of several open source projects of which are very widely used. gkrellm, skipstone, pronto...any of those ring a bell? And IMHO He's done a very good job, keeping all of his code very modulated, lightweight and extreamly becoming of unix tools for as far as X11 applications go.
I wish everybody else would think dozens of small tools rather than one very large tool, but for some reason GUI Userlands are slowly but surely killing that kind of development off even in the opensource world.
BlueEDU is building a Linux Distribution only for the school systems. It will not be sold only distributed to schools. They are pushing to move Linux into the classroom by making it easier to use for people ages 5+ they can really use your help with donations to allow them to go pick up cheap old hardware (like the schools have) in order to fully test the distribution before they distribute it Check here for more information
Quadra is one of the best Tetris clones I have seen out there. I recall reading on a few Tetris fansites that The Tetris Company is using its legal power to force fansites away from distributing what they believe to be "illegal" versions of Tetris, citing trademark and copyright on all games involving falling blocks made of four squares joined together. So far, the Quadra development team has not had any problems with TTC, but that doesn't mean that their lawyers are watching. Besides, Quadra plays a heck of a lot better than Tetris Worlds, and is capable of supporting 8 players in multi-player mode.
But if I had any money they would certainly be donated to the Xiph.org Foundation
Free Software is certainly a good thing, and a worthy cause, but open formats for exchange of ideas, thoughs and arts is even more important. Without it, me may end up in a situation where an Evil Corp[tm] can control what you can say.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
From what I've seen alot of free software is started by someone with a good idea (Most of the time, heh). At the point they start needing donations is the point they've outgrown their current structure, which alot of the time is just as simple as "Joe Schmoe who does x project in his free time".
If you need actual funding for what you do, it's time to become an actual company and make a business plan. The reason for people becoming a company is because once you grow to a certain size (Doesn't even have to be big) the laws associated with becoming a company benefit you immensley, along with protect you and your customers.
The way alot of different developers do it now, it's like having a 50 PC peer to peer network. They just don't want to make the jump that they know they have to.
I would really like to give donations to these organizations as gifts to my friends. Does anyone know how to do this?
If a decent proportion of those of us who use free software were to leave some money to free software organisations in our wills then it would generate a significant income stream. Many charities get most of their funding through legacies from those who've benefited from them (e.g. Macmillan Cancer Nurses), and perhaps we should bequest money to, for example, the Free Software Foundation if we've benefited from free software through our lifetimes.
If you haven't got a will, then your New Year's Resolution should be to make one, and to remember free software in it. Statistically, sadly, a fair number of you who are reading this message will die in 2002, so if a good proportion of us make bequests to free software bodies then they will get quite a bit of income next year.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
Oh, I do have business plans of that sort, but of course, you need time to make time, and you need money to make money. I'll get there someday.
Zodiac Survey
I think everyone is thinking too small. You need to go where the money is, so you need to have a good plan for companies to support free software. Many companies already do this (I think the Apache developers are all doing it as part of their job). Another example is IBM. The problem is somehow organizing free software developers and companies into a coalition.
Although it's not an OSS/FS coding project, iComm has always run on GNU software, operates on a strictly volunteer basis, accepts charitable donations -- and most important, exists only to give nonprofit groups free webspace, email addresses and majordomo mailing lists.
Their charitable receipts are only good in Canada (pity, eh?) but they help lots of US-based NPOs, including Amnesty USA.
-Patrick
disclaimer: iComm founder, but no longer involved
So what will it cost me to get Slashcode sent to me in a nice #006666 green box complete with documentation, a /. beanie and 1000 hours of AOL free* to host my site?
* Subject to terms and license agreement. Some restrictions may apply. Void where prohibited. Offer not valid in Holland, MI.
- "free software developers should get paid for their time"
- "I always donate to free software companies"
- "there should be a way for these people to get paid".
- "We should have micropayments so that we can be charged a little bit per use"
- "If I like a piece of software, I try and buy something from the developer to support them"
However, when a similar article highlighting the problems of web site publishing came up, the comments were:I didn't see anyone advocating rewriting open-source software to disable payment mechanisms. (That's the equivalent of ad-blocking software).
I saw people recognizing that developers should be compensated, and that there are other expenses (such as rent) that exist for free software. Yet no one bought into this for content.
I saw sympathy towards free-software companies that were financially in trouble. Compare that with the scorn against content providers that are in trouble.
Is it true? Are all /. posters pure hypocrites?
RalphIt amazes me that this seems like a new concept to some people.
Hard work, intelligence, character, and MONEY will get you everything in this world.
I'm a 2000 man.
The Federalist Papers were NOT made under the rule of the English King. We were already a country. It was made to promote the Constitution over the Articles of Confederation.
I don't know how banks are usually started, but I imagine we could start an online credit union without too much trouble. Members start with a minimum account balance, then pay piecemeal for whatever they want: $1 for a good song, $10 for your new window manager... They just can't pay more than they put in.
The bank has a big pool of money from all the user accounts. We invest it to pay for our machines, net connection, and admins.
We could even make loans, charge for accounts below minimum balance, offer CDs... just like a regular credit union.
It could drive a new economy!
For geek dads: Contraction Timer
There are many institutions out there with the resources and money to help keep OSS moving.
Universities have always played a big role in producing technology like this, and countries in Euorpe and Asia are already starting to move in the direction of OSes like Linux to get away from American corporate controled software from MS.
Most developers make their living developing in-house apps for corporations, and OSS is a great platform for developing custom applications.
While any geek who knows his system and can type "make" could download the source, build, and run, the vast majority of users can't. Heck, I'm a programmer, and half the time I won't download source -- building is just a hassle I don't need.
The big idea behind Free Software is that everyone has the freedom to contribute. People who just use the binaries aren't really contributing (except perhaps in finding bugs): they're just using the program. By freely distributing source code, but charging for binaries, everyone retains their freedom to contribute while the developers get money from the people who are just using their applications.
Even the side-effects of Free Software are still there: lots of eyes to find bugs in the source, advancement of the state of the art through easy examination of the techniques of programming, the ability to fix what you need fixed and scratch your own itches... for anyone who has the ability to improve, improvement is free and easy. The rest buy the binary, install, and run happy. It even fits with the GPL.
Consider the new situation:
Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Come buy our cheap tank! Invulnerable, 100 miles to the gallon, and a fully-staffed garage for all your maintenance needs!"
Prospective station wagon buyer: "Sounds good to me. I'll take two!"
Second Hacker: "Hey, I know a little something about transmissions. Can I see how you've put your tanks together?"
First Hacker: "Sure, come right in! The garage is open to anybody. Maybe you can even help us out."
OK, I'm enthusiastic about it. Sorry. But if you can see the downside to "buy-naries" (other than my stupid marketing nomenclature), tell me now.
Before I start selling.
Judebert
We're out of explosives. What we need is a plan!
For geek dads: Contraction Timer
How many people do you think I can kill in 10 seconds on a packed 747? With a silencer I could probably take out everyone around me without anybody knowing anything's going on.
You're such a retard, it makes me want to cry. Wow, somebody wants trained law enforcement personnel to have guns on the plane, but not random Joe 6-pack, what "folly!" Shoot out a window, the door, lots of ways to bring down an airplane with a fucking gun. I really find it incredible that you're arguing for allowing guns on airplanes.
Again I restate my point: you gun loons are the most un-American psychopaths in the world. You're worse than whomever is responsible for Sept 11th - you want it to happen again. If the WTC had been contained the offices of the NRA, I'd be less sorry about the whole episode.
Imagine if Open Source let one of its own become a business leader! The right person could be the next Bill Gates or-
:)
Uh, never mind.
If these orgs are only 501(c)'s then donations are not tax deductable. If they are 501(c)3's then it is tax deductable. You should check with each organization because the article could be wrong.