Slashdot Mirror
How Can I Contribute To Open Source?
rtobyr writes "I work for a state government agency. That means we can't donate money, because it's a 'gift of public funds.' I had the idea to put up a Web page stating that we 'use the following free software to save tax dollars,' as a way to help spread the word about open source software, but management calls this an 'endorsement.' A mirror server is a no-go as well. I'm certainly not a talented enough programmer to help with development. I've donated $10 here and there out of my own pocket, but I'm hoping you Slashdotters have some creative ideas about how my organization could give something back to the teams that create free software we benefit so much from."
Exactly. My company has used OpenVPN for a long time. Recently I saw their nice pay product and convinced my boss that the features it offered was worth it (wasn't a hard sell at all). Now we have bought 20 user licenses of OpenVPN. It allowed us to give back, and still look good to the business office.
Besides the good suggestions above, I am curious about this part:
I had the idea to put up a Web page stating that we 'use the following free software to save tax dollars,' as a way to help spread the word about open source software, but management calls this an 'endorsement.'
Technically, if it is true ("you" are selecting free/open source software to save tax dollars, and there is a statement someplace in the govt documents indicating that is part of the reason for the choices made) then endorsement or not, it's public information, and I do not see why stating it, if worded correctly (to properly indicate the reason such choices were made) would run afoul of anything.
The government has in the past made statements on how it has or plans on saving money. The wording of such a statement though is probably key to ensuring it does not run afoul with any other rules and laws (also assuming that such a statement is both (a) true and (b) indicated in some public government document).
But that's just my opinion - and regardless of whether it is correct, it still in no way guarantees you will keep your job after making such a statement on a govt or related site.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
You may not be allowed to directly simply give money to OSS. Many OSS projects offer prefered "development direction" for donors, though. If you want a feature in a certain tool, get into contact with the maker and see whether the project offers this option.
You're not simply giving money away. You are buying a feature. A feature that will be publically available and not exclusive to you, that's a given, but then again, I thought government spending was supposed to be done to make the public benefit from it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You also don't need to buy support from an existing provider. You can ask the project leaders for something you find valuable to submit a bid for annual support within a defined price range. With the price range limited, they automatically win on competence.
This means you could for-instance switch from Windows to KDE on 100 desktops and offer the KDE project the bargain basement fee of $10 per PC, per year to deliver the desktop the way you like and respond to concerns.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
*shrug* At my company I put it in the suggestion box to support some of the open source projects we use. The manager pulled it out and got with a few other development departments and all of a sudden several open source projects got a check for several thousand dollars each last year. I was hoping we'd drop them a $10 spot or something. Not every work place would do that.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Ditto. We've been running OpenBSD in our server room for years, and we duly pay for it. We buy 1 copy of the newest release for every machine running OpenBSD, regardless of whether that machine gets an upgrade or not. The bean counters don't have a problem with it because we're paying less than other IT divisions in the company, but we're still shelling out about $5k a year to the project. If we could afford to pay more, we would, but we have other things that we have to pay for as well.
That must have been one heck of a microwave. Back in a previous life, I worked for the State of Ohio. You had to go through a bidding process for things that cost $1K or more. (That may be different nowadays but that was the way things were back in the '80s. And it was amazing how many quotes for $980 or $995 you would get from suppliers; they knew the rules as well as we did.) For a microwave oven, we probably would have taken up a collection in the department. (We actually had a microwave back then. Wonder how it was paid for? I doubt it cost a grand, though.) I know that when I was in grad school, a bunch of us collected the money for a decent coffee maker for the lab; no bidding process required. :^)
We had to deal with approved vendor lists as well. They work as long as the people who made the list of vendors knew what they were doing. Back in the day when 8-inch floppies ruled the earth, there were as many formats as there were manufacturers (it seemed). After three failed attempts to use the approved vendors to get a single stinking box of floppies that would work in a PDP-11 floppy drive -- with each attempt taking about ten days from placing the order through the arrival of the wrong media -- I ordered some from the office supply store we walked past on the way back from lunch. Accounts payable was going to refuse to pay the store because they weren't "on the list". After we explained that they were holding up a federally funded research project, they backed off and paid the invoice.
As for bids, I doubt that they must accept the lowest bid. There was an established procedure we could go through to justify selecting a bid that was not the lowest cost. We didn't use it often because it was a pain to write up the justification but it was possible. Again, times may have changed so my experience may not apply any more. And California's budgeting process is infamous for being impossible to deal with. Ohio's may be just as bad now as far as I know.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M