I have been thinking lately about how much I’ve gained from the use of all the free software on my machine. All the tools I use daily, that someone took the time to sit down and code and release under a Free Software license. When I write little scripts and release those I feel like I’m contributing a little bit back to the community, but I doubt I could ever repay everything I’ve used. Even if I wrote a hundred applications and contributed them all back I think I’d still be in debt to the free software community as a whole.
For this reason I have decided to donate a percentage of this sites income back to a Free Software / Open Source project each month. The AdSense on this site has given me added incentive to continue blogging, and now I feel like I have a responsibility to give back where I am able.
What does this mean for the site?
It doesn’t mean much really. It means that AdSense will continue to be a part of this site, just like it always has. It means ads may appear in the RSS feed after a time as well. I do promise, however, that I will never go beyond text-based ads.
How can I help?
If you would like to help in donating to a Free Software project along with me you have two options.
First, you can make sure that you don’t block the text-based ads on this blog or RSS, or occasionally visit a link. If you use AdBlock or AdBlock Plus it is simple to selectively allow ads on a particular site. Just by your viewing the ad a small bit of revenue is generated, which can be donated to a Free Software Project.
Second you can donate directly to a project of your choice. See the list below for projects that I have collected so far.
I will choose a project from the below list each month and post which project and the donated amount on the site. I feel that is the responsible thing to do considering each of you is helping with the donation amount as you visit the site. You should know what is being done with it.
For the month of July 2007 I will donate 25%. This number may go up based on the amount generated.
The Free Software Donation List (feel free to comment with additions)
FSF (Free Software Foundation)
You can donate to Wikimedia Foundation, if you care about Wikipedia or use Mediawiki.
I assume you use WordPress, you can also donate to them.
This makes me wonder, is there a good way to donate to a series of projects. I mean, what I could love to do is setup a repeating paypal to some group that would then disburse the funds to a different worthy OSS project each month. Rather than deciding and finding the method of donating to different projects I could just set up something and forget it.
Anyone know of anything like this?
Since your list of free software projects doesn’t include either of those I have an interest in, I can comment freely ….
I read your blog through its feed, aggregated on a Planet. I read most blogs that way, and I expect most of us in free software do likewise.
That means, no adverts. Not my choice, it’s the medium!
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I think could add VLC ( http://www.videolan.org/contribute.html ) to your donation list. They do a lot for allowing us to play DVD/videos under Linux.
And maybe Beryl too ( http://fundraiser.beryl-project.org/ ).
David
They do not produce software, but they help us to still use free software : the EFF , http://eff.org/support .
If you have planning on advertising on your blog, that is your choice. But please make certain that advertisement does not end up on Planet Ubuntu.
Could you please add the WINE group to your list. It may not be sexy getting windows programs to run on Linux. But to the future of mainstream computer users crossing over from Commercial software to FOSS, it is essential that the last of the “show stopper” apps, that regular users all “have”, be able to run in GNU Linux.
I must say though, that since I now have a a4tech webcam that is driver native in Linux. I no longer have a need for windows and am just amazed at how fantastic Ubuntu has become. Some nights I walk away from my Ubuntu dual processor PC and just say to myself that it is such a pleasant thing to use and then get this amazing sense of happiness knowing that EVERY citizen on earth can now freely use this wonderful technology that WE as a community have pioneered.
Love your blogs. Keep up the good work.
Regards
George
PS I support the VLC nomination as well.
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