Slashdot Story Helps Raise $43,200 For the FreeBSD Foundation In Three Days

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Slashdot Story Helps Raise $43,200 For the FreeBSD Foundation In Three Days

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 13, 2012 @01:00PM from the not-done-yet dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD Foundation has posted blog article article talking about the remarkable surge in donations they've received in the last three days following a recent Slashdot article reporting on weak fundraising this year. Deb Goodkin reports that the FreeBSD Foundation, as with many non-profits, receives more than 50% of its annual funds at the end of the US tax year, but that the Foundation has never seen this rate of donations before, and will hit a new record for unique donors this year. She comments that it was Slashdot readers that made the difference! She does, however, appeal for further donations noting that they have a long way to go on their full goal."

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Exaggeration by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-13 13:09 · Score: 4, Interesting

Not sure that I agree with the implied attribution to Slashdot. As the Hacker News discussion revealed, the usual pattern of donations to FreeBSD is a late surge, apart from the fact that it got coverage in other places.
It would be nice if Slashdot dropped the self references, as it erodes its credibility.
1. Re:Exaggeration by Nyder · 2012-12-13 13:43 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Not sure that I agree with the implied attribution to Slashdot. As the Hacker News discussion revealed, the usual pattern of donations to FreeBSD is a late surge, apart from the fact that it got coverage in other places.
  It would be nice if Slashdot dropped the self references, as it erodes its credibility.
  Slashdot has credibility?
  
  --
  Be seeing you...
2. Re:Exaggeration by damn_registrars · 2012-12-13 14:19 · Score: 2
  
  Not sure that I agree with the implied attribution to Slashdot. As the Hacker News discussion revealed, the usual pattern of donations to FreeBSD is a late surge, apart from the fact that it got coverage in other places.
  
  It would be nice if Slashdot dropped the self references, as it erodes its credibility.
  Slashdot has credibility?
  No. Slashdot had credibility, but that was years ago. For the last 10 or more years it has been a place to find out what conservatives think about technology, and in the past 3-4 years it has added on the new goal of providing the most up-to-the-minute news on all things facebook.
  
  Credibility was never profitable. That said, they didn't become profitable after they jettisoned their credibility, either, but they felt they had to try something.
  
  --
  Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
3. Re:Exaggeration by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-12-13 16:25 · Score: 1
  
  It's acknowledged by the linked blog post, so the self-reference is perfectly valid and proper:
  "We were thus surprised by coverage on Slashdot and Hacker News suggesting that we were behind in our fundraising goal ... The response to those articles was a remarkable outpouring of support — we have had over 650 new donations in the last three days alone, raising $43,196. ... This massive increase in small donations will set a new record for individual donors in a single year. The readership of these sites has been instrumental to this success. You'll also be glad to know that the news article triggered a number of further corporate contributions from FreeBSD consumers. "
4. Re:Exaggeration by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-13 17:54 · Score: 1
  
  For the last 10 or more years it has been a place to find out what conservatives think about technology
  I don't want to start a fight about peoples political views, but the only time that's the case is as intentional fodder. There's virtually nothing in the way of dissenting opinion on slashdot, which is very far left when compared to the rest of the US. The few that do turn up and offer meek resistance are quickly buried.
5. Re:Exaggeration by derGoldstein · 2012-12-13 20:07 · Score: 1
  
  So why are you still here, let alone participating in the conversation?
  
  --
  Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
6. Re:Exaggeration by drinkypoo · 2012-12-14 01:15 · Score: 1
  
  No. Slashdot had credibility, but that was years ago.
  Maybe Slashdot has less credibility with you, but it has steadily been gaining more credibility with everyone else to the point where news outlets regularly cite it today.
  
  Credibility was never profitable.
  I guess there are two kinds of lies, registrars and damn_registrars. That's an incredibly ridiculous thing to say. Credibility brings eyeballs and eyeballs drive impressions.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
7. Re:Exaggeration by 1s44c · 2012-12-14 01:27 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Sorry to derail your point a bit but the rest of the world is very far left compared to the US.
  What the US calls left and right the rest of the world calls right and far right.
8. Re:Exaggeration by damn_registrars · 2012-12-14 02:55 · Score: 1
  
  No. Slashdot had credibility, but that was years ago.
  Maybe Slashdot has less credibility with you, but it has steadily been gaining more credibility with everyone else
  Wow, someone woke up on the pissy side of the bed this morning?
  
  And how do you know that everyone else views it as being increasing in credibility?
  
  to the point where news outlets regularly cite it today.
  I don't know what news outlets you look at, but the ones I watch often scoop slashdot to the news. While slashdot is - and pretty well always has been - a news aggregator rather than a news site in it's own right, it fails to be even close to the first aggregator to pick up on most stories now.
  
  I guess there are two kinds of lies, registrars and damn_registrars. That's an incredibly ridiculous thing to say.
  Indeed, what you just said was incredibly ridiculous.
  
  Credibility brings eyeballs and eyeballs drive impressions.
  No, statements do not need to be credible to bring eyeballs. For example look at any of the conservative "news: sites that are often cited in discussions here. Slashdot is following much the same MO - you can bring plenty of eyeballs when you don't worry about credibility but instead focus on exciting your core audience. Just look at the quarterly "hall of fame" section here on slashdot - three of the top five (by comment count) are political and none of them portray non-conservatives in a positive light.
  
  --
  Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
9. Re:Exaggeration by drinkypoo · 2012-12-14 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  Credibility brings eyeballs and eyeballs drive impressions.
  No, statements do not need to be credible to bring eyeballs
  No, but sites do. Unfortunately, many people are poor at separating credible from incredible information. One of the less credible memes commonly spread here on slashdot today is that slashdot was once of higher quality. To that I say lawl roffle, roffle lawl, et cetera.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying by Jailbrekr · 2012-12-13 13:14 · Score: 1, Troll

Honestly, how can we have a BSD post and NOT have the "BSD is Dying" meme?
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last
http://www.samag.com/documents/s=1148/sam0107a/0107a.htm
in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin
http://www.amdest.com/stars/Kreskin.html
to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and
its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dbblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying

--
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Article down - full article text by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-13 13:18 · Score: 1

Man, it's been a long time since the last proper Slashdotting. Anyway the server seems slow, so here's the article text.
---
*Stunning News Website Fundraising Contribution:* Over 650 new donations raise $43,200 in three days!
Astute readers of our blog know that The FreeBSD Foundation's annual year-end fundraising drive began last week. Every year over 50% of our donations arrive during this campaign. We were thus surprised by coverage on Slashdot and Hacker News suggesting that we were behind in our fundraising goat. We’d never turn down additional news coverage of our work raising funds in support of the FreeBSD project, of course, but remain confident in our fundraising target.
The response to those articles was a remarkable outpouring of support — we have had over 650 new donations in the last three days alone, raising $43,196. Individual donations are absolutely critical to the business of The Foundation. Not only do they contribute significantly to our ability to financially support the FreeBSD project, but they also help us demonstrate broad public support in order to maintain our public non-profit status.
This massive increase in small donations will set a new record for individual donors in a single year. The readership of these sites has been instrumental to this success. You'll also be glad to know that the news article triggered a number of further corporate contributions from FreeBSD consumers and wankers. Our hard work is not done, however. We still have $195,000 left to go to meet our target this year–or exceed it!
Look forward to more news soon. . .
---
1. Re:Article down - full article text by 1s44c · 2012-12-14 01:48 · Score: 1
  
  CmdrTaco has a small penis.
  Did NetCraft confirm that?
I kind of figured that.. by cyberjock1980 · 2012-12-13 13:18 · Score: 2

I bookmarked their FreeBSD donation page so I could watch the thermometer go up(and hopefully reach the top). I made a donation too since I use FreeNAS and I'm going to solicit a friend to donate since he uses FreeNAS as well.
1. Re:I kind of figured that.. by jawtheshark · 2012-12-13 20:33 · Score: 1
  
  I did the same, as I had not much time when I saw the initial article, but forgot about it. Seeing this article made me go "Ooops, I wanted to give something... which I promptly did"
  
  --
  Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
2. Re:I kind of figured that.. by TheRaven64 · 2012-12-13 20:35 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The thermometer is updated manually, because some donations come via bank transfers, some via cheques, some via PayPal and some via DonateNow and automating all of those is a bit tricky. Currently, Deb goes through all of the donations by hand and updates the donors list and the title. Over the last two days, she's been completely swamped with the number of donations. The amount isn't totally unprecedented, but the number of individual donations is even larger than a few years ago when the Foundation put out the call for individual donors because they were in danger of losing their non-profit status because too much of their funding came from large corporate donations.
  Also, while I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from donation to the FreeBSD Foundation, much of the work on FreeNAS (and PC-BSD) is funded by iX Systems, so if you use either of these projects and are in a position to put any business their way, it would possibly have a larger impact. iX is on the donors' page as a gold sponsor, but that doesn't tell the whole story. As well as making a sizeable donation to the Foundation directly, they have matched funding on a couple of Foundation-sponsored projects this year, so the total amount that they've given is considerably more (not to mention employing several people to work full-time on FreeBSD).
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Slashdot... by cheesybagel · 2012-12-13 13:22 · Score: 1, Flamebait

/. is dying.
BSD is dying.
etc.
Re:It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dyin by Lisias · 2012-12-13 13:28 · Score: 4, Informative

http://everything2.com/title/BSD+is+dying

--
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Re:Slashdot... by SomePgmr · 2012-12-13 13:32 · Score: 4, Informative

Being posted on Hacker News and Reddit and a few other sites probably had a much larger impact. Slashdot ceased being relevant about a decade ago.
I see statcounter in the page source. I'd guess they know where their traffic is coming from.
Slashdot editor arrogance by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-13 13:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

It takes a lot of arrogance to assume that Slashdot alone was the reason for those donations. It's okay to take some credit, but I read about this issue on Hacker News and other outlets a full day before I read it on Slashdot.
1. Re:Slashdot editor arrogance by BitZtream · 2012-12-13 15:10 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Read the summary at least troll, a FreeBSD rep reported that the income was from the slashvertisement based on actual data, like you know ... referrer headers.
  The brunt of BSD donations comes from larger organizations, but it certainly did result in some contributions.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Re:It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dyin by TC+Wilcox · 2012-12-13 14:40 · Score: 2

Mod parent up and grandparent down. Stupid troll is not informative....
Re:It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dyin by BitZtream · 2012-12-13 15:08 · Score: 2

Is this the same post from 2004 or did you edit it before you reposted it?

--
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Not to beat a dead... by Sfing_ter · 2012-12-13 15:09 · Score: 1

Operating system... just kidding, I am fully aware it is alive and well and doing great things...
HOWEVER, it would make more sense and get them MORE DONATIONS if the giant "Donate" button on the top of the page ACTUALLY took you to the place/page you can make a donation instead of some monotonous page about their good works and why you should donate.
Just sayin', but the obligitory dead os thing was funny.

--
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Re:It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dyin by Bengie · 2012-12-13 15:24 · Score: 1

Your two links don't work and the primary body of your post is from a recognized troll post that has factually incorrect information and is 10 years old. Maybe I'm not sensing the sarcasm and my detector is broken.
Two Great Tastes, Even Better Together! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-12-13 15:25 · Score: 3, Funny

Slashdot and FreeBSD: after all, no one wants to die alone. ;-)
"Pssssst! Hey, buddy! Can I interest you in a vintage Net 4 tape? Real cheap for a collector's item like this. I'll even throw in a QIC-2 tape reader and a 'I'm Mentally Contaminated' button, just for you..."

--
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I keep being told by OzPeter · 2012-12-13 15:26 · Score: 1

Correlation != Causation

--
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
1. Re:I keep being told by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-12-13 16:26 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  That's why they looked at referrer headers to see where the people who's been donating were coming from...
2. Re:I keep being told by lipanitech · 2012-12-14 00:46 · Score: 1
  
  I am sure many of the die hard slashdoters use BSD. The old slashdot readers like myself were and still are linux and unix enthusiasts. The article helped a NON-PROFIT organization and slashdot got some positive press. Good for them. Web sites do have ways to track where site donations and site traffic comes from.
  
  --
  http://thetechnologygeek.org/
3. Re:I keep being told by 1s44c · 2012-12-14 01:50 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, a good thing happened.
  I don't get why there is so much trolling on this story.
Re:Two Great Tastes, Even Better Together! by jampola · 2012-12-13 16:00 · Score: 1

Mod up. This made the nerd in me ALMOST cry! :)
FreeBSD 10 will change fortunes for the FreeBSD by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-13 16:16 · Score: 1

The FreeBSD is a great operating system that we use in our desktops, laptops and servers. The upcoming FreeBSD 10 will be a great OS for specially for desktops and laptops with high end graphics. The FreeBSD foundation should pay more attention for desktop/laptop requirements of the FreeBSD OS, especially in graphics and power management sector, such as offer a solution to support hybrid switchable graphics such as Nvidia's Optimus, etc. And also should allocate more resources to release FreeBSD 10 as early as possible.
1. Re:FreeBSD 10 will change fortunes for the FreeBSD by greenreaper · 2012-12-14 05:38 · Score: 1
  
  Would rather have resources allocated to 9.1 which is a long-term support release that most institutional users of FreeBSD actually look to.
Re:Two Great Tastes, Even Better Together! by bmo · 2012-12-13 16:33 · Score: 1

Slashdot and BSD both have to catch up to Usenet in time awaiting impending doom, as Usenet has been dying for 20 years.
--
BMO
P.S. An example of how crowdsourcing works: http://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=R6Z7xceSLy4
Be sure to watch to the end.
Re:Whatever happened to the slashdot? by SomePgmr · 2012-12-13 18:11 · Score: 4, Funny

Whatever happened to the frantic efforts to post anti-anything-but-linux rants
Wha? We hate everything. Most of all technology. Facebook, iphones, raspberry pi's, 3d printing, your favorite distro, medical technology, the maker movement, twitter, Nasa and Spacex, Arduinos, UAV's, gaming consoles... even Slashdot itself. We really like to hate Slashdot.
So tune in tomorrow, there will be plenty of bitching and whining about everything. It'll be very emo... I promise.
Re:Two Great Tastes, Even Better Together! by aztracker1 · 2012-12-13 19:02 · Score: 1

There are a few usenet groups that are still fairly active... Beyond this, most of the spammers have moved on, so it's kind of nice again.. there's also IRC for realtime.

--
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
So many better uses for this kind of money... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-13 20:47 · Score: 1

For example, if ReactOS was getting this kind of funding, we would have a complete open source windows clone by now.
1. Re:So many better uses for this kind of money... by Jorgensen · 2012-12-14 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  ... and? Why would we want a window clone?
Re:It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dyin by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-13 22:00 · Score: 1

Honestly, how can we have a BSD post and NOT have the "BSD is Dying" meme?
That meme is dead. Netcraft comfirms it.
Re:evidence slashdot isn't what it once was by 1s44c · 2012-12-14 01:54 · Score: 1

i would've expected more from slashdot readers... much more. $43k raised from slashdot traffic is an embarrassment to this site.
Given the poor economy and the fact that a lot of really good people are unemployed or underemployed $43k for one story is really good going.
Just Donated by TheNinjaroach · 2012-12-14 03:06 · Score: 2

I donated $30 last night after reading this article.

My reasons are 1) I think the BSD license is awesome, 2) SSH rocks, and 3) OS diversity is a good thing.

--
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Re:Hey Microtard by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-12-14 03:36 · Score: 1

Your humor detector is malfunctioning. That probably because it was made in Chine - and has no "satire" spectrum.

--
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Re:It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dyin by jedidiah · 2012-12-14 03:38 · Score: 1

Nope. He's just an automaton and the post is hard coded as a constant.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Openoffice by Seeteufel · 2012-12-14 05:37 · Score: 1

Is the Openoffice suite already ported to LLVM? So you can use FreeBSD for OO.org headless servers?
Re:Slashdot... by MrNaz · 2012-12-14 07:10 · Score: 2

The use of phrases such as "reasonable people like me" usually indicates that the speaker is not a reasonable person.

--
I hate printers.
Re:Slashdot... by unixisc · 2012-12-15 01:49 · Score: 1

This is correct. On one hand, they claim that it's not censorship, but when getting modded down restricts you to something like 10 posts a day, when those you disagree w/ are still unlimited if they haven't been similarly modded, it's very much censorship. Either a guy has to stop posting, or post as AC.