
curl receives $10K USD donation - danso
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2020/01/03/curl-receives-10k-usd-donation/
======
judge2020
Crazy to think that curl is in nearly every piece of tech sold today[0], and
is used in a large amount of the software on those tech products, yet $10k is
the biggest donation it's received.

0: [https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/09/17/the-worlds-biggest-
cu...](https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/09/17/the-worlds-biggest-curl-
installations/)

~~~
amelius
I suppose open source projects could change their license such that big FAANG
companies have to pay for their use, and individuals and small business could
still use them for free.

I see no downsides: if my company ever grew to FAANG proportions, I'd be happy
to pay a few million dollars (then pocket change) to open source projects I
used.

~~~
zozbot234
That would make them "formerly open source" projects.

~~~
amelius
I don't know, e.g. Qt has a license for commercial use, but most people would
say the project is open source.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
According to this reddit thread [0], some important parts of Qt are not Free
and Open Source software. That includes the Qt Quick compiler. It's true that
_some_ of what's under the 'Qt' umbrella, is available under the permissive
'weak copyleft' LGPL licence.

More generally:

When a library is released under a strong copyleft licence like the GPL, then
you are welcome to make use of it, but you are required to release your
software under that same licence (i.e. to make it Free and Open Source), _if_
you publicly release it. They do not prohibit you from making money, nor do
they single out large corporations for special hostile treatment. Any licence
that does, is unlikely to be considered a Free Software licence, or an Open
Source licence.

(The AGPL licence goes even further than the GPL, and can apply even if you
don't release your software. This is relevant for the software-as-a-service
model.)

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/803fx9/qt_comm...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/803fx9/qt_commercial_vs_free_question_in_comment/)

------
caseysoftware
The author is Daniel Stenberg, the lead developer of curl. A few months ago, I
caught an amazing keynote where he walked through some of the _crazy_ things
you can do with it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Mxq013Dy4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Mxq013Dy4)

If you use curl, consider contributing via their Open Collective page:
[https://opencollective.com/curl](https://opencollective.com/curl) Even if
your employer doesn't have an "open source fund," many companies allow you to
expense < $50/month with minimal approval.

------
alias_neo
Interesting footnote at the asterisk, that the Linux Foundation "didn't bother
to respond". I thought of all entities, LF would appreciate something like
curl.

~~~
caseysoftware
The LF hasn't been about tools and software for quite a while. It's
disappointing. I wish they'd change the name at this point. At least it would
be honest.

> _100% of donations received go towards funding diversity programs._

Ref:
[https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/donate/](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/donate/)

~~~
alias_neo
That's a real shame because other than the note at the bottom, it doesn't
really make clear where donations are going. I'd honestly admit that my belief
was different to reality, and I'm not entirely certain what "funding diversity
programs" means in this context.

~~~
dankohn1
I work with the LF and have now followed up with Daniel about partnering with
us.

Diversity efforts refer to scholarships at LF-organized events such as
[https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-
eu...](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-
europe/attend/diversity-scholarships/).

~~~
caseysoftware
Are diversity scholarship applicants to KubeCon generally Kubernetes
contributors?

~~~
dankohn1
Not necessarily. Here are some of the past ones:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=Diversity+Scholarship+Series...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Diversity+Scholarship+Series+site%3Acncf.io)

------
microcolonel
Thank you, Indeed. It's easy to get bogged down and do nothing but cynically
watch assets at the core of your business fail in slow motion, because they're
in the commons; so acting anyway is laudable.

------
Havoc
Good for them

I wonder why there aren't more shotgun style donations for these small
ulities. Ie say 100k split over 100 most popular ulitities for security
bounties etc

That would probably make a tangible impact on overall Internet security

------
tyingq
Somewhat off topic, but it's very odd that the US won't let him visit, and the
reasons aren't clear. [https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-
purgat...](https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-purgatory/)

~~~
alias_neo
There is no indication in that post, that he was denied entry, simply that he
was denied ESTA.

Some countries nationals are allowed travel by ESTA (such as mine, the UK) but
certain conditions preclude it, so you apply for a visa, which is what he is
in the process of doing during that post.

~~~
Liquid_Fire
Not in that post, but there is another post from a year later saying his visa
application still hasn't been processed, and even a page to track how long it
has been which is approaching the 2 year mark:

[https://daniel.haxx.se/us-visa.html](https://daniel.haxx.se/us-visa.html)

~~~
alias_neo
That is, I'd say, an unreasonably long time.

~~~
fluffything
They also spoke at a lot of conferences in 2019, and are going to speak at a
lot as well in 2020. None of those conferences are in the US, and they are
only attending Mozilla all-hands outside the US, so...

