Burning Money on Open Source 127
The following was submitted by a Slashdot Reader who would like to remain anonymous:
"I'm in the lucky position that my current job will provide me with some money through options in the near future; not a fortune, but still a lot. Which project or part of the Open Source community should I support with part of that money?
In a few weeks' time, I will, for the first time of my life, have a sizeable amount of money at my disposal, due to stock options that were granted to me (not a small feat to a German, while stock options are still mostly unknown, or limited to highest management, in most of Europe). So, I have some money I could invest wisely to get even more riches, or I could give back something to the community which I personally owe a lot to, including part of the qualification for my current job.
I'm more than willing to give part of my profit from my options to some project, like in the region of USD 20,000. What project should I give my money to? Which of the many (I guess) applicants are worthwile? Understand that I'm not looking for an investment; I'm rather looking to give back to the community something for what I think I earned due to that community.
Given the fact that my personal preference is FreeBSD (although I understand some of the advocates of the GPL), how would I decide who to give money to? Obviously, there are quite a number of people I could more or less personally support with money, but that leaves me with a bad feeling. (Giving money to friends might seem like a sensible thing, but money always distorts personal relationships, unless there is a overriding cause.)
So, what I'm looking for is something special, which wouldn't be financed by a Big Shot, but for which a donation of some money (or the equivalent in hardware) would make all that difference.
Am I wrong? Should I just buy Red Hat or VA shares? What else is out there that is not commercially viable, but very interesting or even necessary to gain major market acceptance for Open Source systems?
Mind you, I wouldn't mind making a lot of dough on this, but this is a very minor consideration (and given the recent discussion on start-ups, 20k is nothing)."
Blah Blah (Score:4)
That said, here's my advice: Don't donate $20,000 to an open source project. The big guys (XFree, GNU, Gnome, KDE) could always use it, but I don't think your money would improve their software any, just make them bigger projects. It's the little guys who I see as important; the startup OSS game developers, the small window manager that you see potential in, the guy who's working on a better file manager... you get the idea. But $20,000 is more money than most small projects could adequately handle.
Better advice: Take the money and buy some hardware: A bunch of medium-grade Linux workstations, video cards, etc. and donate them to developers who otherwise might be working on out-of-date, or non-standard equipment. Or maybe they could just use another testing machine -- who knows, but it would sure be useful for a load of developers I know of.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Stock Options in New Zealand (Score:2)
EFF all the way (Score:1)
EraseMe
Support app projects,not necessarily distributions (Score:2)
If I had $$$, I would support the application projects that most of the *nixes and *BSDS can run.   Ports are usually pretty simple between distributions and the application and documentation projcts could sure use the money!!!!
. JMHO.
Debian (Score:3)
If anyone deserves extreme credit it would be the wonderful guys at debian.org that have single handedly created the most powerful Linux dist with no real commercial backing.
I would certainly send some money their way (if they would even accept it?)..
EraseMe
hmmm (Score:1)
In my opinion I would definitly steer clear of the big progects like KDE and such.
something that is geared towards say one version in the *nix world.
someone small like the guy making doomling (DOOM / Wolfenstain for the palm pilot) would be a good idea, something that thge Investor likes is above all
I could rant on and on for days why someone should get it and why someone should not, opinions are like a$$holes and everyone thinks everyone else's smells worse than their own.
I do not think you are going to be finding any "community wide" agreement on how you should spend your money.
bottom line is, it is your money, do with it what you will. for a cause you beleive in. for a bit of code you admire.
Honorable (Score:5)
But,
If you don't do it right you will get absolutely hosed financially in the long run. If you don't balance the charitable load and carefully execute, the tax man will eat you alive.
Quick example. Say you are going to donate 10K of your option money to a cause. First off all the pre tax verbage in the package really only takes out about half thats owed. So even on a charitable contribution, be prepared to knock off another 20%. Now your dealing with 8K. Next, execution, meaning what form of donation, grant, product, etc. These methods all have pro's and cons. Lastly, how is the donation going to be used. If its for product, thats one thing, helping support a legal defense fund, thats another, monies going toward a non-profit needing admin and support is still another.
The long and short of it is, unfortunately /. is not really the best place to get financial advise, although I'm sure many different opinions will be shared on where to donate, bottom line, Get professional financial advice along with other guidance, like here at /..
My recomondation (Score:1)
Hardware is good. So are services. (Score:2)
Another idea is services. Sponsor internet connectivity, source code distribution etc. If you're in entrepreneurial mode you might consider setting up a service like SourceForge over here in Europe. Mirror stuff, provide CVS, webhosting and the like.
Just thinking out loud here :) But my main advice would be since you seem to be located in Europe: sponsor/donate/support something over here.
Cya
bBob
Freedows! (Score:1)
Also, some backing for open source word programs would be extremely useful. =)
EraseMe
Something quasi long term (Score:2)
DAMN (Score:1)
-
Re:Cool (Score:1)
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:Debian (Score:1)
I'm thinking more in terms of support for device driver projects (for USB and DVD and printers!!!), game projects, and such things as multimedia projects involving audio/video players that require licensed codecs (which cost $$$$) -or- the project could use the $$$ to design their OWN codecs!
Geez...   there's so much that needs to be done....  
How cynical.... (Score:3)
True, everyone has their own project barrows to push (see my signature below :). Howerver, I would like to make a more general suggestion.
Why don't you finnance bug-fixing? Equivalently, you could pay people to smooth out those little inelegancies which make free software harder to use, but which most hackers will grumble about rather than fixing.
This could be done using some kind of "bounty" to the first person to fix something up, or by some kind of specific "contractual" agreement with specific coders.
Docu? (Score:5)
first impulse (Score:4)
My first impulse as to how to respond to this question is to recommend donating the money to a legal fund that protects open-source interests (assuming one exists -- if not, something like the EFF [eff.org] might be good). Open source supports itself mostly through donation of man-hours -- developers working for free. You could always horde the money, work less, and develop more, but if you're looking to really benefit other OSS developers, contributing to their defense is a non-trivial gesture. Although contributions in the way of better hardware, etc. are valuable, one aspect of this enterprise that requires a signifigant amounts of money is the hiring and retaining of legal services. You can't kludge a solid legal defense on your own. That way, next time a software liscense comes under fire, or a patent threatens to restrict development, the open-source community has the means to respond to such legal threats.
-ac
Re:Honorable (Score:1)
This is good advise, however I'm hoping that anyone who plans to sink a good chunk of change into anything would seek professional advise anyway.   Besides, it's a bit difficult to write out a check for US$20,000 and hand it to someone without your bank and the recipient having a fit (in fact they start bugging out if the check is for US$1,000 or more!).
I interpreted the article as being a request to a pretty diverse and knowledgeable audience (yes, believe it or not,
The Free Software Foundation (Score:4)
Another option is something like Axel Boldt's Free Software Bazaar [csustan.edu], although that concept has a few well-discussed problems of its own.
Debian [debian.org] is certainly a worthy cause, as mentioned, but they don't take donations--rather, they relegate them to Software in the Public Interest [spi-inc.org].
The hardware idea is certainly a good one.
Legal (Score:2)
legal battles looming? Could a war chest be set up to help fight GPL
violations and the like?
Re:You can be helped! (Score:1)
Just because you have problems doesn't mean this guy should donate his money for you to see a mental health practioner.
Besides, I'm thinking 20,000 USD isn't enough judging from the damage you've probably caused yourself...
Re:You can be helped! (Score:1)
You have been warned.
Award (Score:1)
Ralph Furmaniak
The Great AIP (Artificial Intelligence Project) [sourceforge.net]
hmm (Score:1)
I don't think that it is a matter of "I'm so good and so much better than anybody else".
Rather, more a difficult decision that our brotherhood of nerds has been asked to help make the decision easier. He will probably have a guilty conscience if he makes a poor decision. Most of us try not to judge so harshly.
A couple of suggestions (Score:1)
*If* I had vast resources of money to burn, I would definitely hire a small team of programmers to work on a few opensource projects that I think are worthwhile. This is, of course, scalable. If you don't have all that much money, you can only afford one or two programmers.
Naturally this would be totally altruistic, philanthropic, non-profit, Mother Teresa, 'throw your money down the drain' behaviour (unless you want to take a big chance and try do a "RedHat".)
Optionally you could try create and actually sell an OpenSource product, tricky as that may be. But that would be like trying to start a business around OpenSource, which doesn't sound like what you want to do.
Another option might be to try some sort of education scheme. For example, you could buy Linux (or FreeBSD or whatever) CD's/PC's and donate them to schools, etc. Of course, these things normally require maintenance, which normally requires someone who already knows what they are doing, so that makes it difficult for some organizations to get off the ground. (In my experience these things fizzle out if there isn't anyone with Linux knowledge around to keep these things up n running.)
You could also market, ie, order (and dish out) lots of OpenSource paraphernalia (T shirts, mugs etc)
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit.
Make Sure You Invest Through An Organization (Score:4)
Whatever you decide to do, find an organization like Linux International or the Linux Fund to channel the money through.
Find what you want to donate to and then let them manage the money and ensure it does what you intend it to do.
This is what we are intending to do for any donations to our project, which is promoting localization of Linux in South East Asian countries to help third world developers and small companies.
shareware and little guys (Score:2)
I know this certainly won't hit the 20K mark, but go through everything you own/use and such and send $100.00 checks to everyone on the list. Or search through Freshmeat for a couple of days and see what projects you think are pretty interesting and freeware/shareware like. There's a whole group of people out there who try to make their living off of the stuff they're writing. I would think that $20,000 would go a long way for a whole slew of them.
Also, $100.00 is a small amount of money that you won't have to worry about the ramifications of taxes and silly stuff like that (i don't think--IANA[whoever is involved with that]). And it's a small enough amount that it won't overwhelm the person you're giving it to. Large amounts of money to small groups who aren't used to having money tends to create a beaurocratic backlash... May inadvertantly kill some projects or cause the members to be angry with eachother.
And if you don't spend it all in the first week, that's cool. Just keep up the practice and such. At a bare minimum, it's a good motive to keep looking at what's out there. Might find solutions to problems you never knew you had.
/will
Software Patents (Score:1)
Re:Stock Options in New Zealand (Score:1)
Well, anyone who relies on stock options is, frankly, an idiot. And I speak as someone with a whole passel of them. Stock options are like a prepetual lottery ticket. If you luck out, you get to cash up and be rich. If not, you have a fistful of nothing.
If you have a decent salary and stuff, stock options are a nice bonus. If you sacrifice a salary for the stock options, you're asking for a world of hurt.
money (Score:2)
Your financial planner will be able to guide you towards an educated choice. They might even suggest that you support your local church or charity. I'm thinking that you might feel more community spirit by helping your fellow Germans that are less fortunate than you.
Also, some thing else to consider: the common thread between most millionares of today is that they hold on very tightly to their money. The other common thread is that they did it over a long period of time (not through IPOs).
Good luck!
Re:How cynical.... (Score:2)
I like this idea. It isn't glamourous work, but certainly it needs doing.
What I had intended to suggest myself was getting a good server with lots of disk space and a fast internet connection. Register a domain name for it, and host a project, mailing lists, whatever. But go an extra step. Find a project or two that you consider worthwhile, no more than that, which need someone to coordinate them. Set up all the project communication and help keep them moving. The problem with some of the little projects is that they are being done by a handful of people in their spare time. Nobody has the time and energy to be the project leader.
Some suggestions (Score:5)
The FSF: while this might go against the grain for a BSD guy, the FSF have done and continue to do a bunch of useful stuff, have a proven track record, and most of their major projects (GCC, OpenStep, a free Display PostScript) are usefull on a variety of platforms.
The EFF: a bunch of people doing good and fighting stupid laws. Which might not sound like much to do with free software, but if you think about the DCMA and the like, the ramifications are pretty scary.
The XFree86 project: A free X system is pretty important - one of the factors allowing Linux and the BSDs to be taken seriously as alternatives to commercial *ixen for workstation/desktop users. Unlike a lot of improtant projects, the XFree guys are perpetually underfunded and always need more hardware and cash (as well as programmer time).
Scholarships: One of the things needed are programmers to do stuff. A scholarship for a thesis which involves work on useful free software has got to be a winner, and may get the most bang for your buck.
Documentation: Documentation is one of the worst areas for free software. Hire a tech writer to document popular, poorly understood applications and give the docs away.
fund a sourcexchange project (Score:1)
Re:An idea... (Score:1)
Now I understand your idea of OpenSource... I doubt he will want to contribute his 20,000 USD to your project.
Create a fund? (Score:2)
The more i think of this, the better it sounds. Companies making money off OSS Software would have a way of giving back to the community without having to worry about who the money should be sent to.
Developers doing especially interesting things could get money from the fund to work on their project or hardware needed to write drivers could be bought.
A lot of projects needs money, and there are lots of companies and people that could give it. This would be a way for them to meet.
What do you think?
Documenters (Score:2)
Hiring a small team (3-10) of professional documenters for a year would benefit the open source community immensely.
Their mission would be to find or solicit mid-level to large projects that are past the alpha design stage, interview the lead developers to gain enough detail to write an 80% user and design documents, and hand it back to the project for normal, on-going development.
The main benefit is to have someone skilled in writing "lead" the development of the documentation for a short period.
GPL defence (Score:4)
Re:A couple of suggestions (Score:1)
my school would just take them and format them in favor of windows95...
Thanks for the reminder (Score:2)
I keep forgetting to put the FSF on my "they need it more than I do" list along with Planned Parenthood and the ASPCA.
Good call.
I'd also like to third (?! -- or twentieth, by now
supporting promising projects should be easy (Score:1)
Code reduction (Score:1)
[This doesn't have to wait for money to start, but $$$$$ would sure kickstart a project like this.]
The open source community, especially within the last few years of massive development, is in serious need of code merging.
I'm not talking about the big projects that have obviously different design goals, but so many of the little projects that have mostly overlapping features.
The project would start off working with Freshmeat to find projects that could be merged. Possibilities include command line utilities, taking GUI apps and creating a shared library of the core functionality, and taking language-specific libraries, converting them to C/C++/Obj-C, and rebinding them back to multiple languages.
Based on the list of projects, the code-reuse project can then begin coming up with tips and techniques for merging projects (both source and community), getting the various developers talking to each other, and participating in the merge effort.
I'd sign up to work on this project.
OSS Games (Score:2)
With 20k you could probably make at least 4 teams speed up a bit.
I'm currently involved in the making of a game that will be released on MAC, Win32 and Linux on a shared disc.
We have serious problems with the funding so I guess that the others have the same problem. In our case the most of the money would go to graphics packages like PS, LW and such. This is because all our graphicans are MAC and Win32 users and wont even consider using GIMP.
Anyway, a few OSS Game developer teams could sure use the money. And if the OSS community suddenly get a few cool games. There sure would be a few more reasons for those balancing between OSS and Win32, MAC to switch over.
Ofcourse this is my biased comment, I would LOVE to see a big OSS game myself.
Note. I'm not trying to get the money myself! The rest on the team are NOT OSS supporters so. It's going to be closed source. But, it helps me get those coding fingers in place.
Give it to schools (Score:2)
Why don't you give the money to a school so they could buy computers with Linux inside. I think it's a lot more important for kids to get initiated to computers than the developers that can easily make money since they are usually well educated.
Luugi
A project yo might be interested to donate to (Score:1)
Yes it is an important project because any programmer needed at one time or another to write a program giving a similar functionlity, resulting in dozens of thousands fo implementations that are mostly doing the same thing.
Seeing that the world was drowned under so much waste of programmer talent doing it over and over again I decided to create a project that would allow people to get free of reimplementing it and give them the opportunity to innovate in other software models. I called this project "The ultimate Hello World".
Yes, I can see your sign of relief to the thought that not ever again you will have to re-engineer this software and taht you will be able to take a pre-cooked solution that would solve all your "Hello, World" problems and set you free of it's mind-bogging complexity.
I think that as generous and visionary as you are you will understand the importance of thi sproject and understand what boost you would give both to this project and to the software community (by inirectly saving them from the assle of thi8s program) by giving 20,000 US$ to this project.
I hereby thanks you in advance.
PS: To contact me for the donation just use the e-mail adress given above my comment after getting rid of the anti-SPAM feature.
More seriously I think that serious candidates are:
1. the FSF. Without them we wouldn't have Linux and probably wouldn't have *BSD (because of GCC), furthermore a lot of people may not love Stallman but since more than 15 years he said the same message and you can be sure that he would us ethe money to favorise Free Software.
2. One of the *BSD, particulary if this is what you prefer. This would be great for them because they don't have the IPO craze there is around Linux and I don't think they would mind a little help. 3. "The ultimate hello, World" of course ;) 4. Maybe give money to people that are working not directly on Free Softwares but are fighting causes that impact Free Sofware, like the league for programming freedom [mit.edu] which works against software patents, or the EFF [eff.org] which fights for the preservation of our rights online. 5. Split the sum between many smaller project, these are probably those that need more money because they are less known and attract less founding.
somewhat offtopic: other alternatives (Score:2)
with that said, imo, the best way to contribute to open source is to find some time and write some code. while money is nice, remember, money for open source cannot hire more programmers or find bugs, or create applications to fill a large hole.
just daveo's $0.02 ;0)
Re:A couple of suggestions (Score:1)
I'd do something similar, but with a minor change; solicit programmers to work on open source projects *they* think are worthwhile. You can select the ones you want based on your impression of the value of their projects, of course. The key for open source development is that people who are working what they want to work on, work more productively. Since it's their choice of project, you should be able to offer moderately sub-standard wages and still get interest.
Another idea (Score:4)
If you really want to help the Open Source community, talk to a computer teacher in a local middle school/high school. Find out how it works and what effect your donation to that department would have. Then help them out-- directly through funds or (better!) indirectly through computers and time spent helping kids learn to code.
I'll bet this even improves your own skills. It will do more than giving to any organization- even the EFF (another good cause).
Re:How cynical.... (Score:2)
Why don't you finnance bug-fixing?
Better yet, sponsor (or bounty) a documentation effort. That's even *less* glamourous than bug fixing and has an even lower "scratch an itch" factor. It's also arguable that the need for good work is greater there.
Good docs can aid the widespread adoption of OSS packages by making them easier for a greater portion of the population to use.
No need to reinvent the wheel (Score:2)
Small new projects (Score:2)
As an example. When I talk to new Linux users one of the major problems they complain of is that none of the text mode editors follow any conventions they are familiar with. I.e. You learn VI at university and you learn Emacs on the Job.
If you are not an IT professional then you probably expect [shift + down arrow] to select a line of text and [ctrl + X] to cut it.
That's how all the GUI text editors work and EDIT.COM from dos dose the same thing. It's a small job and $5,000 would probably get it done. As it stands nobody who wants it can write it and nobody who can write it wants it.
There are several such small projects that go nowhere and will never get done without funding.
Re:Honorable (Score:2)
Really? What bank? What recipent? I have been told banks get fussy about large cash withdraws, but I don't think that is the case for checks! I have written a check for my townhouse, then later my house, and a car even. All of which were bigger then US$20k. Never saw anyone having a fit. Also a few tax checks, but somone had a fit there. Me.
"donations" (Score:2)
You want to do them a world of good? Offer the $20k to support a specific port or driver project that's languishing for lack of time, or to get a software developer to port a package to some free system. $20k may not be enough in the latter case, but it might nudge them over the edge.
A little bit to the little guys means a lot.. (Score:1)
Re:A couple of suggestions (Score:1)
I wonder if this would work on people who are already key software developers in the OpenSource community, as an arbitrary example, offering someone like Alexandre Julliard (of Wine fame) to quit his job, work for a somewhat lower wage, and work full-time on Wine.
I'm not sure I'd want to do that though if it were me. I happen to enjoy my paying job, I don't think I'd want to quit it.
money is a bit ephemeral (Score:2)
-invictus
-----------
#!/usr/bin/perl -sp0777iX+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
Honorable Taxes (Score:1)
where to put your $ ? (Score:1)
I'm not sure exactly how paying someone fits in, but you could in effect scratch your own itch and set up a contract at source exchange [sourcexchange.com]
that suits your personal application desires. Who knows..
Regards,
Ivar
Re:Blah Blah (Score:2)
High-End Hardware (Score:1)
Consider Involved Local Educational Donations (Score:2)
A prime example is educational programs, like we discussed on Slashdot yesterday [slashdot.org]. There are plenty of organisations working to teach disadvantaged children how to use computers, and most of them are disgustingly under-funded.
There are other groups -- Computers For Kids [c4k.org] kind of things -- that are in the business of taking old computers and turning them into useful learning vessels for children. Most of these programs are inexplicably hooked on Microsoft software, and a $20,000 shot in the arm along with a little hand-holding could result in hundreds of children learning the ways of *nix and OSS.
In order to make these donations useful to you and to them, some involvement, even if just for a few days, would be immensely helpful. You would get to direct how your money got spent and you could see the results of your hard work -- excited children that think that Tux is way cooler than Mickey Mouse(tm). And the organisations would be pushed in a direction that they might not otherwise have discovered, instead wandering down the path of closed-source and Visual Basic into the Land of Mediocrity.
I envy your opportunity. I've never had much money to give away, but, when I do, I try and do it in an involved manner. Some call it ego-boosting, but I call it the most satisfying donation that you can give. Any fool (think Bill Gates) can give some money and walk away. But a rare few fools give some money and their time. You got your money through your expertise. Give away a bit of each.
-Waldo
Re:Another idea (Score:1)
If you donate hardware to a local school *please* include the condition that only free software is to be run on that hardware.
Otherwise, they'll just use it as another WinNT/CyberPatrol proxy server. (Or at least that's what the highschool in my town does with all better-than-486 donated machines)
Re:Support app projects,not necessarily distributi (Score:1)
-doug
Don't Forget User Groups (Score:1)
If you think that they are a club that actually DOES stuff, then you might want to consider donating a little bit to them. It doesn't have to be a lot, they'll probably be thankful and find a use for anything you can give them, so there should be plenty leftover for other, larger donations.
Just something to think about.
Money to a worthy cause?! (Score:1)
The causes that I see need most work:
Define an "operating system" (Score:1)
Sorry sir, I'm running NetBSD 1.4.1 on my home LAN, so I know exactly what it is.   Define to me a "full operating system" (hopefully you don't mean something akin to windoze, which ties most of its apps into the core kernel).  
My point is that Linux or any Unix or Unix-like distribution (like the *BSDs) *without* the accompanying applications is what?   Just a kernel.   That's what makes them so "modular".
Fund legal defense/education, not development. (Score:2)
I'd say donate to support Carmac in his fight for the GPL of the Quake 2 code but I don't think he needs it...
OpenSource doesn't need money to write code (the coders, etc. aren't doing this for the money), it does need money to fight legal battles against large corporations.
Another idea would be to donate it to a local school or other group teaching programming/computing with OpenSource products.
Re:Honorable (Score:1)
I feel myself slowly creeping towards something that's Offtopic... I hate this...
It's not such a small world after all... (Score:1)
Deciding which open source organization to give 20G's to is no small matter indeed. Myself I'm partial to the GNU or XFree86 or KDE. I use the spoils of all of these projects every day and have never had to pay a cent. There are also the lower profile projects like cdrecord and mkisofs that most of us couldn't get along without. Then there are guys like Utah-GLX who are making it possible for me to play Quake. The list goes on and on as you well know.
The trick is to think about where open source is headed. Find the one project that nobody will be able to live without a year from now. Of course that is much easier to say than to do.
Just think about where you were x years ago when you started using open source. Find somebody that is in that same place right now. Dump some cash on them. The rewards to the community and to yourself will be great!
Make a difference! (Score:1)
The Tyranny of the Masses (Score:2)
Please don't start with this institutionalized begging, whereby everyone associated with an open source IPO is required to fork half of their loot back into your coffers.
Stock options are risky? (Score:2)
But Amazon has revenues LNUX will never see (Score:2)
VA Linux is tying to sell essentially stock PC's.
Pehrpas one thing they both share are huge competitors and razr-thin margins.
Re:Debian (Score:1)
I'd say Debian would be a good choice. I'd then add: a decent handwriting system; if there were one out there, it probably needs help. I don't know what the state of firewire support in Linux is, but the bit about USB on slashdot wasn't encouraging.
Last of all, I'd suggest buying some old and obsolete computers that might still have interesting UI elements and looking at them. There's a lot of useful stuff that got buried because the management of the company developing it was incompetent, petty, or stealing from their company.
Re:Small new projects (Score:1)
I remember hving dinner with some of the other organisers of LAID [linux.ie] and this came up. Someone wanted to actually code this.. I know he could do with some money
Become a stockholder for influence? (Score:2)
20K as a starter fund would give one a lot of flexibility to do just that, and with many companies at once. A lot of influence (or at least input/intelligence) could be had for just a few dollars. And, the money remains yours - it could even turn a profit. All while contributing to the community and protecting freedom.
In any case, I agree with many posters here, you should definitely seek some sort of financial advice from (tax?) professionals in addition to whatever you might glean from here.
Please let us know what you decided to do so we can collectively give a
Just my 2 little copper coins...
Russ
Re:How cynical.... (Score:1)
<BR><BR>
This is one of the reasons I help start <a href=http://www.OpenDocs.org/>OpenDocs.</a>
<BR><BR>
Scholarships! (Score:2)
(disclaimer: I'm a student, so I'm not exactly suggesting this from an impartial point of view)
--
Re:An idea... (Score:1)
I wonder which one wears the dress though.. *shudder*
Re:Honorable (Score:1)
http://www.fsf.org/
http://www.spi-inc.org/donations.html
Are there any tax deductible free software charities outside of the US? Any tax deductible BSD or Linux Users Groups?
Investing in the community - Open Patents (Score:2)
One could hire a gaggle of lawyers, and begin filing patent applications over every variety of technical contrivance embodied in the collective open source pool. These patents would then become public property, granted under auspices of an agreement based upon the principles of CopyLeft.
The purpose of such patents would be twofold. First, they would be defensive patents, against corporate hoarding, as it were. Second, and perhaps more important, they should serve as a guide to people who wish to impliment whatever concept that the patent protects. This idea occurred to me whist reading about the court action re: DeCSS. It seems that the defendant's attorneys included the entire text of the DeCSS algorithm in the public court documents. This is a splendid idea, and fits well into the scheme of patents. Such patents should include an appendix that describes in detail how the concept was implimented. The actual source code need not be included, but salient concepts about what the code must do, what kind of things caused problems, and the solutions thereto.
I have recently realized that Open Source is just the tip of the iceberg of the kind of communal, cooperative efforts that will eventually lead us to become a collective intelligence. This is a new, and wonderful thing. I look forward to interesting times. -- Norm Reitzel (Blue Water Ventures)
Endowments: the gifts that keep on giving (Score:2)
My understanding is that you still get the tax break (Laws may very in your country).
This is my understanding: You set up a modest fund. The principal slowly grows over time, and they skim off money yearly for donations to non-profit orgs. A small percentage "skimmed" for donations means that the principal will grow faster, meaning that the integral of the money given to open source over a long time is larger, but the short term donations are very small. You set up the rules for deciding who gets the donations, etc.
IMHO, this is the best way to contribute to the future of OpenSource. If you make a bad decission one year, you didn't throw all of your donation down the tube, there's still money for next year. You ensure that your donation gets invested instead of being spent on short-sighted goals that may not pan out.
Karl
I'm a slacker? You're the one who waited until now to just sit arround.
The 'Revolution' needs legal defense. (Score:1)
I've addressed this issue myself, not a someone rolling in hordes of cash (no IPO for me) but as someone who has benefitted from the GPL and Open Source without being programmer enough to give anything back. My method has been through direct community service, namely installing Linux networks in non-profits. But I don't think that's right for you.
Your answer: Legal Defense. You see, in an economic sense, Open Source really *is* a revolution. OS, Internet, and GPL-based ventures are overturning conventional business models, and threaten to destroy the very-scarce-resource model that defines modern mega-corporate capitalism. And, as "revolutionaries", we can expect to come under attack by those (like AOL-Time-Warner) with a lot invested in the old economic model.
Since this is not a revolution of guns, that attack will come through courts, patent offices, and law enforcement. We've just seen the beginning of it through the DeCSS case and the Millenium Copyright Act. And our main defense is to get our own lawyers and tie the issues up in court long enough and often enough that none of us has to work in terror of being singled out as an example, or of having the free distribution of our OS code outlawed.
So give your money to legal defense. EFF is good; the ACLU and Amnesty could be persuaded to pitch in, especially by a $20,000 donor. Or put your money in a foundation, and make grants to cover the court costs of lawyers who defend OS programmers and companies.
I hope you get a chance to read this comment and find it persuasive. It's important to me, because the more laws and legal precedents we let pile up against OS, the harder we'll have to fight later to regain our right to give away our work to whom we please.
Sincerely, fuzzy@agliodbs.com
cosource it! (Score:2)
Most open source projects don't know how to accept donations, and for the money itself to make a difference (in terms of increasing amount of labor, as opposed to hardware purchases) it would take quite a bit of it. The nice thing about cosource.com is being able to join your donations with those of others in order to build up a more useful sum for supporting, etc.
If you just want to use the money as incentive, to carrot additional work out of people, that's fine too - and also quite doable through cosource.
giving money to open source scares me... (Score:1)
Open Source is sort of a means to an end. The goals are for everyone to have access to software, to create software that doesn't suck technically, and to put the user in charge of his software so that when something breaks he can fix it. The goal of giving to charity is generally to help people. For me the fewer steps inbetween the giving and the benifits to humanity the happier I am as a giver. Open source doesn't really need money in the sence that other people, noteably poor and hungry people need money.
On the other hand, I really like the idea of giving source code back to the community. If you do that then you still have your source code. Plus you could feel really good about the fact that thousands of people are using your source... and it's advertising for you too. If you can't write code you could write docs or something... Or if you have the time to help kids learn about computers then do that.
What I want to do is go back to Zambia and start teaching Computer Science at the university. Or maybe get a lot of high school students involved. Have a huge project to translate the man pages into Bemba. There are so many exciting things to do. Of course I would do it with Linux because that's what I like and because nobody wants Zambia to have to rely on MicroSoft for software needs. But the reason I would do this is not because of Open Source but because of Zambia...
If I was seriously going to give money to the Open Source community I would invest in a startup. Or give money to something like Linux for South East Asia. Or buy a bunch of lab computers for a high school.
Maybe I was wrong... (Score:1)
I happen to have my own little documentation project that could use funding too... it's called guru [sourceforge.net] (the GNU User Re-education Utility).
Maybe Foogle was right in claiming that everyone had their own vested interests.... ;)
The money should be used to inprove usability (Score:1)
I say stop fighting over KDE and Gnome and make something that my 55 year old dad can understand. Show people that a company other than Microsoft or Apple can make a truely user friendly GUI.
Re:Another idea (Score:1)
1) They are only allowed to run free/OSS software.
2) They must start a club or after school group for programmers that work on OSS. One of the side benefits of OSS is how useful it is to teach up and coming programmers. Continue to donate your time to foster the skills of this up and coming group.
3) The computers are used by non-programmers during the school day for a intro to computers course the rest of the time. One way to help the community is to increase the number of users. Make sure they learn the basics Unix instead of learning Windoze. I am teaching my younger siblings Linux as their first OS and they are finding it much easier than I thought it would be.
If you offer to teach the teachers Unix I am sure they would be more than happy to, agree to these conditions.
Nate Custer
My favourite charity (Score:1)
Freely-redistributable fonts (Score:1)
Re:Create a fund? (Score:1)
There are several advantages of setting up a non-profit organization as a gateway for giving to the OSS community. First, it lowers the hurdle to giving for those who don't have the time or energy to figure out all the legal and financial details, tax implications, etc. The postings above make it pretty clear that there's a lot to consider: finding a real need, ensuring that your gift has real impact, understanding the tax implications for you and for the beneficiaries, and so on. A Foundation would know about all these issues and would take care of them.
Second, at least for donors in the US, a foundation would take care of the tax implicitions for donors: donations to non-profits with 401(c)3 status are tax-deductible and very easy to figure into your income taxes.
Creating a foundation would make a contribution to the OSS community as easy as writing a check to The Open Source Foundation. Thus, we could expect many more people to contribute financially.
The difficult thing is making it actually work, convincing people that the money is going to the right places, and keeping the cost of organizational overhead down. I believe the best way to ease these concerns would be to start by getting commitments from several OSS community leaders to be board members of the Foundation. Folks like Linus, Larry Wall, and Tim O'Reilly would review grant applications once or twice a year, and select beneficiaries.
I suspect that lots of nouveau riche geeks would be inclined to support the OSS Foundation, even if they didn't make their money from the Red Hat IPO. This is a great idea!
Education and Arsdigita.org (Score:1)
Even if you don't agree with the goals of our particular organization, I think it is a good model for what any open source company should shoot for. One of the greatest contributions open source has is to broaden access to technology and I personally believe that any open source company that does not sponsor this kind of educational initiative is failing the community.
Re:Honorable (Score:1)
I havn't given a large gift check beofre, but I know banks like you to use certified checks for any thing. Sometimes they get the charge a direct fee for cert. checks. Other times they win just by getting the "float" on the money. A cert. check actually moves the money from your (I assume) intrest bearing account into the banks's account (where they get the intrest) as soon as issued. So they love it when you pay for big ticket items like homes that way.
The seller likes cert. checks because they don't bounce for lack of sufficent funds, and the issuer can't put a stop payment on them (at least not normally). It is generally a requiremnt when you buy a home. Sometimes for used cars. It wasn't for any of the new cars I have bought.
As far as writing a $20,000 check to the "Linux Router Project", I don't see what eyebrows at a bank that will raise. They have no idea it is a gift. They probbably susspect you are buying a woodworking shop.
Indeed. However they can't issue cert. checks. They can route the money around, and advise you on whetehr you are better off cutting a normal check and not getting intrest on it durring the "settiling period", or paying evtra for the wire transfer which lets you get a few extra days of intrest.
They also may advise you to invest the $20k and make a fund that pays out $1k a year to your favored project (not all that likely for a "mere" $20k, but for $100k or more that could be the way to go).
Re:Another idea (Score:1)
This is fine - if the person in question has the time to donate to help out with it. If the person in question doesn't have the time, it hinges on the person who will be coordinating the 'Computing Club' to have enough of an understanding of Open Source to be able to represent it right, and make the people in the club understand what Free Software is about..
I would have been more than happy if my high school had offered a computer club of any sort, but due to a teacher who didn't want to donate his free time to it (And I can't blame the man, he was past retirement age and was only still teaching because the school basically begged him to.), nothing like that was offered for us.
Donating to a local school isn't a bad idea, but I think that donating Time would be a far better thing to do in this case, if possible.
As for other ideas - I agree that documentation project would be a good place to donate some money. As would going through the list of software that you use and sending a small donation to the primary authors of said software, while it not be a great financial help to them, would be more than appreciated by almost anyone, I'm sure.
A little story, if I may (As a whopping 4 people will read this, being that it's a day after the story is posted.. ;) ). I edit/compile/publish a electronic magazine, as well as do some writing and helping out with other websites. I once reviewed a net.book that somebody had created for the roleplaying game Shadowrun. A month or so later, the compiler of said net.book sent me a printed and bound copy of the book.
That was cool. Sure, it probably only cost him 10-15 bucks to get printed, but that's not the important thing. He spent his time and money getting this book printed - even though he had NO need to, because I'd already published this review, and any good/bad effects from it had already taken effect.
That's cool. That's what keeps people who do things for the community (Whatever community you may belong to, I'm not speaking of the Open Source community) doing the things that they may do. For the pat on the back after a job well done.
Adam J
Angel investing (Score:1)
If your interests are more academic, perhaps you could buy a nice computer lab for an interested local high school? A decent Linux-based server networked with diskless Linux workstations would be very cost effective and not overly difficult to administer. You would, of course, be obligated to help get them up and running (grin), but I'm sure lots of student volunteers could be found. With luck, some of those students could go on to startups of their own. (256MByte Athlon workstations, maybe shell out for a VA Research dual-P3 server... Forte for Java would make a *great* learning environment...) They'll probably need help getting a high-speed Internet feed, too.
Re:Honorable (Score:1)
The bank took about 20 minutes making various phone calls before clearing the cheque, but they did clear it and deposit into his account.
Banks reserve the right to stall for a day b
Re:GPL defence (Score:1)
I think the money would thus be better spent elsewhere. As another poster suggested, XFree needs a LOT of work, and some funding would be a good way to help them out.
~Sentry21~
Depends what your goal is... (Score:1)
If that seems a bit indirect to you, then I'd strongly urge that you put the money toward legal and political efforts, like the aforementioned EFF [eff.org] or its European counterpart(s). I know that certain elements in the EU are pushing for a U.S.-style patent system [yahoo.com], which would be a disaster. Find out who's opposing it and give them a hand.