Linux Fund Loses MasterCard Funding Source

An anonymous reader writes "The Linux Fund was established in 1999 to provide grants to free and open source software projects from funds raised via a credit card featuring a picture of Tux, the Linux penguin. This credit card was offered through MBNA America Bank, which was purchased in 2006 by Bank of America. Last week, LinuxFund credit card holders received mail from Bank of America informing them that the LinuxFund card would be discontinued. Linux.com has a few details about the end of the credit card including statements from executive director David Mandel, assuring that the LinuxFund will look different but will continue. In the past, the LinuxFund provided one-time grants of $500-$1,000 USD to many projects including SDL, FilmGimp, Xiph.org Foundation, CrystalSpace, K12LTSP, and Kismet. The LinuxFund stagnated in 2003, and in 2005 it was revitalized by new leaders and by 2006 provided a stable $6,000 per year contribution to a number of larger projects including Wikipedia, Blender, Debian, Gentoo, and OpenSSH." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.

Comments

Credit card companies

[Cyphertube]

In my experience, MBNA / Bank of America have not been that great for credit cards. I used to get a ton of crap from MBNA, and I can be pretty sure those people have infested BoA's credit division.

My best suggestion would be to work with HSBC. A properly set up programme with them would possibly enable same/similar card services globally. I've had no problems with HSBC's customer service, aside from the occasional glitch in a VoIP connection to a call centre.

Otherwise, I've had pretty good experience with GE Money Bank and Citibank (as far as credit cards go). Chase, though, I avoid like the plague. So, if LinuxFund gets a Chase card, well, forget me then.

Re:Credit card companies

[Belial6]

Chase made my list of 'never do business with them' companies when my credit card account with them was getting fraudulent charges from someone inside Chase, and they refused to do anything about it. When I called their fraud account services, all I would get was "There is no way that could happen.", "I highly doubt that.", and "That is a pretty serious accusation." Here are some of the reasons I believe it was an inside job:

1) I found out about the charge when I went to use the card and it was 'locked' due to suspected fraudulent activity. The only charge that was with a new company was a $30 charge to a dating service. This hardly seemed like a suspicious enough activity to block an account without first contacting the account holder.

2) More charges were made AFTER the account was locked. If I cannot make charges with the card, it is highly suspicious that someone else can.

3) When they sent me a new card with a new number, charges showed up from before before the card was created and the account number was assigned.

4) When I called Chase to point this out, they sent another card, and locked me out of being able to see the second cards charges online, even though I could still see the first card, and any previous cards I had held with Chase. 5) By the third card, the dates on some of the fraudulent Charges had changed.

Given that some of the problem would have actually required access to Chases computers to make happen, it was clear that it was an internal problem. I understand that there is no way for a company to guarantee that every one of it's employees is honest, but when they lie to me badly to cover up an internal problem instead investigating an fixing it, it is time to take your business elsewhere.

And, most importantly, if they are going to lie to me, they should at least have the decency to tell a half decent lie.

Re:It does not matter that much...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are very naive if you think this. Linux got to the point it is today because of the push by big money for Linux. Novell, Red Hat, and IBM have all been instrumental in pushing Linux to where it is today. If Red Hat and SuSE (now Novell) hadn't made viable commercial solutions for Linux, it would not have even competed with AIX, HP-UX and Solaris. IBM has been such a huge source for Linux that they even made their OS more compatible with it, when they introduced AIX 5L (guess what that 'L' stands for). AIX uses similar command syntax as Linux, it is also the only one of the three (AIX, HP-UX and Solaris) that I have seen provide RPM support. Many of the open source packages that have been ported to AIX can easily be installed using an RPM, instead of having to use the default AIX installation mechanism or re-compiling source yourself. All the ports for HP-UX and Solaris that I have seen, still use the OS default installation mechanisms, which are not always the most intuitive or friendly to use.

Honestly, I think a lot more Linux development and advancement has come from BIG money then it ever did from the volunteers. There are a good deal of contributions being made by people with a monetary interest in the success of Linux.

Re:It does not matter that much...

[SydShamino]

? I was under the impression that Linux got where it is today because companies like IBM, Novell, and Red Hat paid their employees to work on open source code, organizations like OSDN paid people like Linus Torvalds to manage and organize the material, funders like the Linux Fund and (recently) Google's Summer of Code provided grants for smaller developers, and, finally, some people contributed volunteer work.

I certainly wouldn't want to criticize the work done by unpaid volunteers, but I would have to doubt that they now represent a "large" portion of the code in Linux, either in terms of lines in the kernal or features.

I've had one for years

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had one of these for years. I work for Microsoft. It's mildly amusing to pay for stuff in the company store with the cards (though I probably wouldn't do that if Balmer or Gates was behind me in line, not that it's likely to happen...).

(posting anonymoosely because, yes, I'm a coward... ;-) )

Oh come ON!

[Colin Smith]

Though I probably wouldn't do that if Balmer or Gates was behind me in line You only live once!

But I still have that great rate... for now

[HTMLSpinnr]

I too got one of these letters, and was disappointed that the Linux Fund program was dropped and converted to their lame "World Points" card. I've had 2 specialty cards that were previously MBNA (AOPA and Linux Fund), and both were changed somewhat with the BofA purchase. The AOPA card went from FBO rebates to double points @ FBO's, and now Linux Fund Card isn't supporting Linux and other F/OSS projects. Fortunately, for now, I still enjoy a 7.9% rate on the card which is the only reason I haven't canceled it (that and I enjoy the occasional remark on the Penguin logo on the card). When the card expires, I'll probably cancel it as there's no additional benefit and I hate the idea of letting BofA make money off of me.

If (or I should say when) BofA changes that single lasting benefit of having one of the lowest non-promotional non annual fee consumer credit card rates around, I'll drop the card. In the mean time, I too look forward to a new Linux Fund (or similar) branded CC from someone else, provided it has reasonable terms and rates.

Re:It does not matter that much...

[Blnky]

? I was under the impression that Linux got where it is today because companies like IBM, Novell, and Red Hat paid their employees to work on open source code, organizations like OSDN paid people like Linus Torvalds to manage and organize the material, funders like the Linux Fund and (recently) Google's Summer of Code provided grants for smaller developers, and, finally, some people contributed volunteer work. I certainly wouldn't want to criticize the work done by unpaid volunteers, but I would have to doubt that they now represent a "large" portion of the code in Linux, either in terms of lines in the kernal or features.

In that case, I think you may be surprised by this.

Re:It does not matter that much...

[RajivSLK]

Did you read the article you linked to? Only 7.7% of contributions were from comfirmed volunteers...

Quote: ..at least 65% of the code which went into 2.6.20 was created by people working for companies. If the entire "unknown" group turns out to be developers working on a volunteer basis - an unlikely result - then just over 1/3 of the 2.6.20 patch stream was written by volunteers. The real number will be lower, but it still shows that a significant portion of the code we run is written by developers who are donating their time.

Here is the full list:

 

Top changeset contributors by employer
(Unknown) 1244 25.0%
Red Hat 636 12.8%
(None) 383 7.7%
IBM 368 7.4%
Novell 295 5.9%
Linux Foundation 261 5.2%
Intel 178 3.6%
Oracle 126 2.5%
Google 97 1.9%
University of Aberdeen 79 1.6%
HP 78 1.6%
Qumranet 71 1.4%
Nokia 67 1.3%
SGI 64 1.3%
Astaro 63 1.3%
MIPS Technologies 61 1.2%
SANPeople 53 1.1%
Miracle Linux 43 0.9%
MontaVista 41 0.8%
Broadcom 39 0.8%

Re:It does not matter that much...

[gujo-odori]

While I do not dispute this, one thing that needs to be remembered is that many of the people now being paid to work on Linux by Red Hat, IBM, et al, are the same people who worked on Linux for free for a long time and brought it to the point where those companies thought it worth paying people to work on it.

If you look at the percentage of code in Linux that was written by people now being paid to work on Linux but who were volunteers when they contributed it, a different picture might emerge. This doesn't discount wholesale contributions of code such as XFS by SGI or JFS by IBM, but without the work of volunteers, including those now being paid, Linux would simply not exist.