I would like to get a feel for how often people donate to the various projects we all use, and which projects get donations. Personally I've donated to Firefox, KDE, KTorrent and of course to the Free Software Foundation to support all the great tools I use on my Linux distro every day. How about you?
Posted Oct 8, 2011, 5:01 PM UTC
I've donated to kde, arch, amarok, fsf and the linux foundation. I wanted to donate to mplayer, but they don't/didn't accept cash. If wiki counts, then I donated there as well. I basically figured I could spare about 100 bucks from my monthly graduate stipend for an year. So, I split it up amongst all these projects last year.
This year, I'm a student member of the fsf and a member of the kde jointhegame program — substantially cheaper than last year. :)
By now, I'm reasonably comfortable with C++ and am getting comfortable with qt and kde through beginner tutorials online. This is temporarily on hold, however as my thesis/graduation-related deadlines currently have higher priority. But post-graduation, I hope to return back to tinkering hopefully start contributing patches to programs that sorely need them.
I was just thinking about this today. I was actually thinking of supporting "lesser" known projects that I think are vital to Linux. I'm strongly considering becoming a monthly contributor to Ardour, even though I have little/no need for the program.
KDE, Gnome, FSF, Amarok, Mint and GIMP.
I donate to Linux Mint, and recently I was thinking I should donate to Debian while I'm at it, but it seems like they already have a lot of corporate partnerships and whatnot. Maybe I'll find some lesser projects to donate to, instead.
And although they're not an open source/FOSS organization, per se, I donate to the The Electronic Frontier Foundation. too. Those cats are definitely on our side.
OpenSSH + DDWRT
I find FOSS cloud services to be of crucial importance now, and especially in the future (so important for collaborations of all sorts: political (arab spring, london riots, occupy wallst. etc.), business inovation, science, and everything else), so I've donated to The Freedom Box Foundation, EtherPad, SparkleShare, Mozilla, Wikimedia, and possibly Universal Subtitles (if I haven't I should).
And, as others, I've donated multiple times to those helping FOSS without being so themselves: EFF, Open Rights Group (UK sister org of EFF), Creative Commons.
That Freedom Box sounds awesome.
Yes, it really is! You should watch this fantastic talk by the founder, Eben Moglen.
Wow. This should be required curriculum for every CS class.
Hey, I'm glad you liked it! :)
If you'd like to help you could help translate the subtitles of it into a language you speak, if it doesn't already exist. :)
Even better - what opensource projects have you contributed patches to?
This is an expertise that not everyone has. Donating money or doing documentation is way more accessible to the common user.
Good question.
Donated to Uganda for Vim. Does that count?
I'm a subscriber to LWN. Excellent articles with a great editor and an important presence in the Linux community. Not an open source project, but along those lines.
Calibre, Ubuntu, Firefox, Transmission.
Does the Humble Indie Bundle count?
VLC. I'm thinking Blender will be next when I have some spare $.
Good one, I always forget how much I use VLC, it's ubiquitous even on my Windows machines.
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Gnome. And possibly Firefox too (it was many years ago, and I still have the Gnome mug which helps the memory!)
Not exactly a project, but very much related to software and patent freedom: Electronic Frontier Foundation.
I donated to them because the team that unlocked my phone's recovery didn't accept donations and pointed to them if I wanted to donate.
I also donated to alpharev who unlocked the phone's bootloader and to CyanogenMod which I used for a long time.
Subsonic. What an awesome media server. I can get to my <anything> from <anywhere>.
OpenBSD, PCC and SBCL for me.
I bought a book for the creator of the jQuery table sorter. Of course, Amazon decided to wait 9 months before sending it, even though it was in stock. >_>
My patches have been minor and contributed to random projects on GitHub.
I've only donated to Subsonic, not because I'm cheap though, it's because I honestly don't have money to donate.
But when I used Subsonic, I just had to.
After I finish my education and find a stable job, I'll probably set up monthly donations to FSF and EFF as a thank-you for providing me with great software and protecting my freedoms all these years.
None, but I have donated my time, which is more valuable and gets shit done.
On behalf of those of us who cannot code, I thank you.
Linux Mint
Transmission (multiple times)
FSF
EFF (and now you're forever on their mailing list)
pdf2djvu
Testdisk (has save my ass many times, actually hope it can do it again on Monday, also donations where in euros, so it was quite a bit)
Calibre
Truecrypt (this was like recently, they must really need it because the donation logo is on every page and is a noticeable red/purple/whatever ).
Xiph.Org Foundation
OpenBSD
GParted
SabayonLinux
Tor Project
ImgBurn
DD-WRT (despite that my router is now hectic to use and freezes and I cant remove DD-WRT it seems though Im sure WRTG54v8 has most of that blame)
Tried to donate to the guy that made peazip but that dude really would rather you donate to charities on his behalf. I've probrably donated to more but I dont know if anymore I can think of/slash see in my paypal logs. I try to make a habit of donating if I use it frequently/really like the program and can remember. Next up is possibly mplayer
Is DD-WRT totally opens source? I thought they stopped releasing the source code or something.
And I'm pretty sure ImgBurn isn't open source either.
Have you asked for the sourcecode? I dont know if they are or not though, here is their svn.
I've donated to them, and am not on their mailing list, at least as far as I can tell.
I dont know perhaps it depends when I've had at least 13 messages though possibly more though it doesnt really bother me as they are not abusive with it.