

'Tis the season for giving (to open source) - cperciva
http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-12-21-season-for-giving.html

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sandGorgon
this is awesome - I wish that this could be made into a formal setup (FossFund
?) so that the rest of us who have a different fiscal year closing (March in
India), can make the choice at the right time.

It is very hard to find the right clicks (paypal, etc.) to fund - say OpenSSH.
Hell, I didnt even know that they needed funding until I accidentally ran into
<http://www.openssh.org/donations.html>. Searching for "TuxOnIce donate" does
not even bring up the paypal link right on its front page.

It would be great to have a Kickstarter.com for open source donations -
basically a one stop page to search,click and send my money on its way. EDIT:
Humble Bundle's donation sliders are also a nice way to donate an amount and
have it distributed the right way.

It would be doubly awesome, if I could donate, but also indicate a specific
sub-project which I am interested in funding (e.g. multi-monitor support in
Linux, etc. )

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CWIZO
Our company (3 people, I'm the only dev) will start giving back to open source
too. But we won't be giving money, my boss just agreed to grant me 4 hours a
week to participate in any open source project I want. It's not much I know,
but I'm super excited about this and can't wait to get started!

~~~
16s
You might also consider buying an OpenBSD CD. It's only 50 bucks. This funds
the development of OpenSSH (which we all benefit from regardless of what *nix
we use and like).

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JoachimSchipper
Nice to see companies giving back to open source, although I don't think Colin
is "in the red" on that account. ;-)

One question: do you donate money when I fund my account, or when I use it?

[EDIT in response to cperciva: glad to see you chose the sensible option. I'll
donate my own money.]

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cperciva
When you deposit money into your account it counts as "unearned revenue"
(i.e., a liability). So it's your usage which contributes to the amount I end
up giving to the FreeBSD Foundation, not the amount you send me via paypal.

[EDIT in response to EDIT: It's not a matter of "chose", except to the extent
that I used the word "profit". Canadian tax law is quite clear about the
accounting rules I have to follow.]

