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Linux Credit Card Re-Launches

Posted by kdawson on from the we're-in-the-money dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The all-new Linux Fund Visa Card launched on July 24th. The Linux Fund began in 1999, and lasted until Bank of America bought MBNA and canceled the program earlier this year. Before that time the fund had distributed $100,000 a year on average. US Bank has inked a new deal to resurrect the program with new features. Currently, the project is open to ideas for supporting well-loved and community-supported software that is underfunded. The current list of supported projects includes Debian, Wikipedia, FreeGeek, Freenode, and Blender."

6 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. firefox mozilla by operato · · Score: 3, Interesting

    i'm sure if you put mozilla firefox on a visa credit card you'd be able to raise more money. with linux you could get all the high paid IT guys whereas with mozilla firefox you'd be able to get everyone that surfs the web including high rollers in other sectors but hey, what do i know.

  2. Re:But how do they select projects? by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I strongly suggest nomination of the Gimp; it both has enormous potential, and could stand a significant degree of improvement as compared to other graphics mangulators.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  3. Important Question by DTemp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Do well-educated geeks (the readership of this site), on average, make their credit card companies less money than the general public? I'm guessing yes.

    Generally speaking, I think people on here pay off their cards and don't get their payments in late. There isn't really much of an incentive for a bank to cater to this crowd... I've had Bank of America credit cards for a couple years, put on around $50K worth of charges, and have paid $0.00 in fees. They don't like me. My parents were actually told that if they kept paying off their monthly bill in full (and thus not allowing any interest to be collected), that their card would be dropped.

    But I admittedly don't know that much about the business model of a credit card issuer.

  4. con job. by timmarhy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is a big con. why not donate directly instead of having your "donations" in the form of interest skimmed by the bank.

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    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
  5. I stoped using mine by YGingras · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because MBNA gives so much money to other causes that are detrimental to freedom or information.

  6. Linux Fund is good by Salsaman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I got a donation from LinuxFund a couple of years ago to help with my development of LiVES. At the time it was very useful, though of course that money has long since run out.

    To all those people saying "why give money to LinuxFund, why not donate directly ?", well...go ahead...why don`t you donate to my project ? The fact is that people hardly ever donate at all, and I`d rather have a couple of thousand dollars from LinuxFund in one go, than get $20 a month or whatever through personal donations.