A New Year's Idea: Pay For Some Freedom

It's not a contradiction: Free software costs money. (That's because server space, bandwidth, coffee, electricity, computers, and workspace all cost money.) Besides which, the time it takes to code new window managers, programming libraries (and languages), web browsers, and all the other goodies which make a modern computer useful may be spent as a labor of love, but it's time that competes with real-world jobs, family time, vacations in the Riviera and sleep. 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. Here are a few ideas; you're invited to point out projects and organizations that I've left out.

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!

Comments

WARNING: GAY PR0N REDIRECT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uggghhh, this "worktribe" guy is at it again. You know what to do, moderators!

Information wants to be free

[Anonymous Coward]

Send your money to me, recently unemployed thanks to your downloading of my work for free from Kazaa. Merry Goddamn Christmas

If I wanted to pay for software...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I'd buy Microsoft.

No, really! I mean there are only 2 reasons to use open source software:

1 - it's free
2 - it usually a little better in quality

Other than that, open source software is a huge pain in the ass. The free motivation is obvious. The "better quality" part is debatable... I'd actually say that, over time, open source software is lower quality the commercial project that evolve or die based on commercial patronage. Open source software (high and low quality) has a tendancy to just limp along over the years without any major improvements. Not all project maintainers are Linus... just remember that the next time you decide place your rep. on the line by using an open source tool.

And let's face some facts here folks... how many of us fall into the "Yes, I use open source software (at home), but in my day job I spend most (if not all) of my time deploying and supporting commercial software".

That's what I thought...

Here's a better idea for the new year:

Pick an open source project this year and contribute to it by forking the codebase.

Well FUCK that, man!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that idea! Dumass! If I wanted to spend my hard-earned money on a dimwits software I'd just use windows. Jesus! you fucking loser idiots.