

OpenBSD receives approximately $100,000 in donations  - skreuzer
http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=139024400731106

======
nnq
Great. ...if only people wouldn't have made such a fuss about a meagre
$100.000 (yeah, it's a lot of money for me too, but these amazing guys are
_developing an OS_ , for god's sake, not crafting another "ubercool"
webframework-of-the-month) and posted so many "i'd like to see the exact way
the money is spent" comments everywhere (transparency is a lot of times the
opposite of freedom, you know - once people have proved you they can deliver
something great, as they have done in the past, stop incumbering them with
_extremely annoying_ requests for transparency!).

~~~
riquito
It's a legitimate request, and it shouldn't be even necessary to ask for it,
for any project that accept donations or publicly funded. It's annoying, but
it's important.

~~~
swalsh
"It's a legitimate request"

I don't think it is personally. Their transparency is in the updates to their
software. If you think the updates don't correlate well with the level of
contributions, than don't contribute.

Having to justify every expense would be extremely burdensome, and would only
detract from running a productive foundation in my opinion. Would we ask
Microsoft how it spends all the money we give it in exchange for a copy of
Windows?

I think maybe if this was a cancer foundation, it would make sense. The
results are harder to see, so you might legitimately be interested in seeing
where the money goes.

~~~
michaelt
In my experience it's not so much a matter of "legitimacy" or "transparency"
so much as pragmatism; charities believe that "$10 buys and delivers an anti-
malaria net" makes more than "$10 supports our work in various ways"

Whether OpenBSD believe transparency would increase donations enough to be
worth the bother is of course another matter. And if they to and forego some
donations that's up to them.

~~~
michael_h
"$50 buys and delivers a CD set and some stickers"

------
protomyth
"We would also like to thank the many smaller donors too numerous to list here
for their contributons to the foundation."

If you go to the openbsd.org page, it does list the people who have given
directly. I would like to see the foundation continue this tradition[1].

It's good to give first credit to the big donors, but it is kind of sad not to
give credit to those paying every month[2]. It made me feel pretty good to get
my name on the openbsd site's page and did encourage me to donate more.

1) with the donor's permission

2) reminds me a bit of Revision3's t-shirts sent to donors, but only the lump
sum people who actually gave less than the monthly donors

~~~
Groxx
Hm. I just realized that, while systems like this often _display_ monthly
donators, I've never seen one that showed the _total_ donated by a monthly
donator. If you've stuck with a monthly donation to X for a couple years, you
could easily be in the hundreds, usually reserved for a relative few. It seems
like this could be a good reward/incentive for monthly donors (which are
probably worth more than one-timers anyway).

~~~
ama729
The developers of Dwarf Fortress (Bay 12 Games) do a financial/game report
every month (though I'm unsure if you are not talking about disclosing what
each monthly donor give):

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135038.0](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135038.0)

------
sharms
I love to see that Google is on their top donors page every year, it shows
their commitment to supporting open source and the tools they have used to
build their business on.

[http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html](http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html)

~~~
corin_
Without putting motives into Google's metaphorical mouth - and because I'm
sure your logic is likely correct - even if they didn't use these tools and
didn't care about open source, the good will they get for being seen doing
this would probably be worth the cost anyway if they pulled it from a
marketing budget.

~~~
nolok
And yet you don't find any of the other companies we associate with "tech
giants" there, nor on Freebsd's donors page [1], whereas Google is there every
year.

So no, I really don't think it's that easy to dismiss it (even though that
wasn't exactly what you were doing).

[1]
[https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors](https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors)
(click 2013 or 2012)

------
skreuzer
They have set a goal of raising $150,000 for 2014 so if you haven't already,
please consider donating

[http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2104.html](http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2104.html)

------
wcchandler
I know OpenBSD sells books and install media, but could they possibly sell
other "swag" to help bring in stable money? I'm sure they could partner with
one of the dozens of nerd shops (This is why i'm broke, thinkgeek, etc.) and
sell $7 shirts with an OpenBSD logo on it for $12 + shipping. The partner shop
takes $1 for overhead, OpenBSD takes $4.

In fact, I wonder if this could be a feasible startup? Selling FOSS swag with
the principal of ~90% of all proceeds given directly to the defined
organization... I'm sure it's been tried, but how unsuccessful have they been?

~~~
delinka
OpenBSD sells this stuff in online stores. But the marketing sucks. You have
to find the sorta buried link named 'CDs/Tshirts/Posters' on the main page -
no "shop" or "buy" or "order" nearby. Clicking that link gets you a page you
have to read to figure out that you still need to pick a store. Then the US
store only had the latest three versions on CD. I've got to find another store
that'll ship to the US if I want a t-shirt.

OpenBSD swag exists, but you've got to be a determined purchaser to buy it.

~~~
wcchandler
Yeah, I was able to find that, too. There wasn't an easy way to purchase
things on most of those sites. It seemed like half didn't incorporate an
online shopping cart/ecommerce solution at all, and would rather you contact
them via email or phone to make a purchase. This seems really backwards.

And while OpenBSD may list them as a preferred vendor (or whatever
nomenclature they used) how can I be assured the bulk of the proceeds from
that sale will go to OpenBSD? I didn't find much (if any) indication that any
amount of money was given back...

------
stormqloud
It's awesome people came out.

I signed up for the monthly paypal deduction. Many a tech can expense a minor
$10-$20 per month subscription for a important project like openbsd.

------
zobzu
i like to donate as much as anybody but i'd like to see the exact way the
money is spent when i do. Too bad most projects don't document that at all.

~~~
yosm
I am not sure if this is what you want, but they describe how they spent in
the past years here:

[http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/activities.html](http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/activities.html)

------
vinhnx
[http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2104.html](http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2104.html)

The URL is mistyped, 2104 to 2014

------
octotoad
Awesome. If the $20,000 quote on electricity costs is accurate, hopefully this
will last them another five years or so.

~~~
tobiasu
OpenBSD has more expenses than just an electricity bill.

~~~
ams6110
But what are they?

~~~
notdang
[http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/activities.html](http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/activities.html)

------
nctalaviya
that's a good news

