[clug] Donating to FOSS. What do people do?

[steve jenkin]

Free and Open Source Software - often 'community supported' - is what we
do on this list.
So I'm wondering if people would put their hands up and share how they
contribute back, in kind, time and $$$ - and perhaps why you do what you
do, or "why this one/way".

Some FOSS newsletter arrived in my inbox this morning and the usual
blizzard of articles triggered a thought:

  How do they pay for all this?

Canberra probably has more paid FOSS developers per hectare than the
rest of Australia... But there's a lot more to it than this...

Some stuff I've seen:

- we have folk who organise LUGs, 'events' and more
- many on-list are active developers/testers/documenters
- some people on-list support LWN & other publications
- others support ($ & time) conferences like linux.conf.au
- we have 'evangelists' toiling away in offices and government
  agencies (like the AGIMO OSS group)
- and I'm guessing much more, which I'd like to hear about...

There's the saying "you get back what you put in", and with FOSS there's
a much more direct connection because people mostly donate their time
and resources ("work for free").

-------------

One of the perennial problems of FOSS is raising money.
Not obvious how to do this when your business model seems to be "give it
away"...

Years ago when RedHat sold distros in stores/newsagents, I bought each
new version when it came out, for the same reason I signed up for Optus
Mobile when they offered services:

 If I don't support these guys in becoming a viable competitor, who will?


These days I buy yearly support from Codeweavers and give a donation to
the WINE project as well because I think WINE is a critical FOSS
technology and can never be supported by 'the majors' for legal reasons
- MS is very litigious and fond of extracting 'licence fees', as it is
doing for Android devices.

-- 
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin