Donate to FOSS Devs!

General Computing
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A major principle I have now come to adopt and care deeply about is making sure to compensate FOSS devs of the software I use or software I want to support.

As an example, I have 6 apps that I use from Fossify.org. Because of that, I considered a $50 donation to them a fair exchange for the incredible software I have been provided by those devs.

I think something that has made this less daunting is thinking yearly instead of donating monthly. For me, it’s less stressful to think about donating $69 to Signal every year than it is to think about donating $5 a month. Maybe its a fear of the month to month commitment.

Either way, whatever you feel is a worthy price for the service provided to you by that FOSS app, please donate to the devs behind it.

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I’m considering getting merch from signal, as it’s a nice way to support them and get something in return.

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You can also “donate” your time and contribute to FOSS if you’re able to. I do both.

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How can we get better funding and support for FOSS?

  • donate
  • raising awareness
  • contribute to projects (code, documentation, user guides/tutorials)
  • educate users, and help bring in new users

what else?

Redhat has an interesting model where they sell support on top.

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The merch from signal has an insane drip.

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I have no clue where their merch store is lol. I didn’t know they had merch.

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I would say that what FUTO is doing with having their apps include an ability to pay for a premium license key is pretty solid too. I am of the opinion that FOSS devs shouldn’t be afraid to ask for as small as $5 when someone initially installs their app.

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Don’t get me started on Redhat. They paywalled open-source software that people have been contributing to for years. I made a lot of people angry and has caused quite the controversy. (Personally, I don’t really use Redhat, since there are so many good open-source Linux server softwares.)

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Well yes it “was” a good model until they decided to rug pull. Then everyone told them to go fork themselves.

It’s likely Redhat has done more good to the Linux ecosystem than bad in terms of development.

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I really wish Fedora Linux would separate themselves from Redhat tbh. If they need the corporate sponsorship, hell I wouldn’t mind if System76 began to sponsor them. PopOS with a Fedora base would be amazing.

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