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Re: Backing GNU to the hilt (was Re: [LUG] Waiting for keyboard input in a shell script)

 

On Tuesday 29 November 2005 1:09 pm, Adrian Midgley wrote:
> Improving methods of funding FLOSS development would be a benefit to the
> Commons.

This ties in as a nice corollary of the openrightsgroup post - one to fight 
the corner in digital rights, also raising the profile of the continued fight 
against software patents, and the other to stimulate free software 
development.

We do need to do both - protect and nurture. So it's best to consider how we 
do this from two viewpoints:

1. Donations / funds for organisations like FFII, ORG etc.
2. Donations to projects and developers to encourage new code.

> How shall we do it?
> I have facilitated two (small, specific) open source-based projects by
> declaring that I will give £100 to whoever produces something with
> plausible promise provided that it is FLOSS etc etc, and suggesting that
> some of my colleagues might likewise chip in ...

That's a well tested model - Richard Stallman used this model for extensions 
to Emacs. It needs a clear target and a project that is not in the midst of 
already hectic development. e.g. there have been a couple of attempts at this 
with gnucash but with the work to get the gnome2 port released, the current 
developers haven't had time to take on extra work. (Not unless you start 
talking silly money where individual developers can afford to take (more) 
time off from their usual paid employment and still pay the mortgage!)

So you need a clear picture of the goals and a development team "between major 
upgrades". This could be suitable for certain LUG members.

> Pledgebank sorts of thing ...

I like the idea of pledgebank - it encourages regular gifts which is a big 
bonus over random donations.

Something like that for developers would also be useful.

> Unrestricted grants for specific purposes...

There'd have to be some kind of limit? You mean a grant of a fixed amount that 
can be used for a specific purpose but unrestricted in how the money is spent 
to achieve the purpose? A kinds of hands-off investment?

> A fighting or slush fund from voluntary contributions through LUGs?

A combination of all those - we have a few funds from raffles and things, 
theoretically put aside for meeting venue costs.

The only tricky part with all this is the infrastructure - dealing with money 
can cost money, especially via credit cards. 

SourceForge have a no-cost system that can work well for a lot of projects, it 
operates through PayPal. Currently, you can donate directly to any project 
that has opted in. Some projects (like one of mine) then opt to divert any 
donations to other projects (like KDE, Gnome, SF itself) where it can be more 
useful. Such diversions are clearly indicated before you decide to donate.

What this lacks is the regular element - something PayPal isn't really 
designed to achieve.

Other projects have their own methods:
http://www.pilot-link.org/ - uses PayPal.
http://www.gnucash.org/en/donations.phtml - uses SF and PayPal.

Then there are organisations:
https://www.fsf.org/donate (FSF and GNU)
http://www.affs.org.uk/support.html
http://www.ffii.org/money/account/index.en.html - FFII (immensely important in 
the fight against software patents)

Who do we want to support?

Each to his own?

Centralised DCGLUG contributions?

subs at meetings? (Nothing traumatic, just a more formal version of the raffle 
and done at every meeting.)

If anyone fancies collecting some links to donation pages on our Wiki, that 
would be a start. Keep the two types separate - those that protect and those 
that develop.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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