 I started regularly donating about a year ago. I am now supporting 8 different projects with 20,77€ per month, and it didn't hurt at all. Why pay for something free? Because free software only exists because other people already paid for it. Someone has to do it. It's time to do your part! If you can afford a subscription service, then you probably can afford a little donation, too. Start with 0.1% of your income. Check out @Liberapay or @opencollective 43 comments
 @mtechman @fell @Liberapay @opencollective I've said it before and I'll say it again - while libraries are amazing, Libby and ebooks are 100 percent NOT. This is from a post by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh explaining why they need to halve the number of loans you are allowed to have: https://www.carnegielibrary.org/libby-hoopla-september2024/ @FishNamedDog @fell @Liberapay @opencollective good for them for explaining the costs...it's a huge problem  @mtechman @FishNamedDog @fell @Liberapay @opencollective Also please read this from. @karawynn on why Libby/Overdrive, now owned by private equity firm KKR is poised to fuck libraries. Hell, they're already have. https://ninelives.karawynnlong.com/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries/ @joeo10 @FishNamedDog @fell @Liberapay @opencollective @karawynn Yup...complicated and a problem, and libraries have no choice but to deal with them. @joeo10 @FishNamedDog @fell @Liberapay @opencollective @karawynn this March 2024 article is a good overview: @mtechman @FishNamedDog @fell @Liberapay @opencollective @karawynn And with the Internet Archive ever closer to death's door (I already resigned to the inevitably, check my pinned thread especially the most recent ones) l, it will get worse so a good piece.  @fell @Liberapay @opencollective And for the love of god, please don't just donate to the big names in Open Source! Sure they can use the money, but so can that lone developer of that small project that makes your life just a little better. So if you're using a smaller open source project that you like, check if they have an option to support them financially. @chaosmonkey Absolutely! I used well known logos for social media purposes, but aiming for the smaller projects in need is key. Everybody's got their niche, what's yours? Think about it and support the small projects that saved your day!  This is true. Back when I used to free-lance I earned very good money, by my standards, and did very little with it other than having an Amex statement which was basically a Good Eating Guide. These days I'm gettin old, have a permie gig, and I chip in perhaps a total of around £50/mth to things like my Masto admin, some YouTube science channels, FOSS projects, and the occasional Kickstarter project. It brings me joy to be able to do that.  @fell @Liberapay @opencollective  @fell @Liberapay @opencollective I'd rather pay for #FLOSS than pay for a #Subscription that'll get constantly enshittified, espechally when half of them ain't available in my juristiction and/or not without a credit card!!! @fell @Liberapay @opencollective also considering how the main Server & Client for #Matrix is "asshole-licensed" under #AGPLv3 I'd rather setup @zulip & @jitsimeetinstances / #JitsiMeet.  @fell @Liberapay @opencollective I want to also suggest looking into Nebula or Means tv streaming platforms. I know that the former is creator owned is one such creator.  So very true. The amount I donate can change each week but I try to donate every week to worthy projects.
@fell @Liberapay @opencollective and the internet archive, which as we've all just learned is rather short-staffed!  Why donate to Matrix (they'll kill me for saying this won't they) They are a for-profit company currently. @hexmasteen @fell Yes, but the Matrix foundation is just a non-profit organization front for the for-profit New Vector Limited & Element Software companies. It *technically* owns the protocol but *practically* all of its members are Element employees, so in reality Matrix bends to Element as they are two different names for the same thing. @hexmasteen @fell that is a possibility, but we wouldn't believe in it as it kinda hinges on the CEO's decisions. As far as we know yes, they aren't profitable currently. We are also not affiliated but we worked on some matrix software (mostly around E2EE, UX, and spec compliance) & did some work with the specification. @ity @hexmasteen Instead of the Matrix Foundation, I probably should've included various independent client and server projects. Despite rumours that the specification is often modeled after the implementation in Element/Synapse and the high difficulty of actually making alternative client/server implementations apart from Element/Synapse, it is certainly possible. I think supporting Matrix as a whole benefits the entire open source community and will lead us to a finished protocol. Eventually. Many independent client devs are quitting (us included). Independent server devs are getting closer and closer to burnout. And yes, it is possible. You will just have to fight the Matrix team at every turn whenever you wanna fix or improve anything in the spec, and we get tired of spending incomparably more time on dealing with corporate bikeshedding than on actual development work. But ye, including independent clients & servers would've been much better :) @fell @Liberapay @opencollective sadly pixelfed is nearly abandoned since it's creator started working on loop, some app components are on V1 when other have a theme V3, it's a mess and it's sad as I expected to use it when it would be fixed....  @girlintech @fell @Liberapay @opencollective This isn’t true, just merged some code yesterday! Pixelfed is still actively maintained, check the git history lol  @fell @Liberapay @opencollective I don't donate to any of these, but I'll start to donate to NV access and maybe, maybe to mastodon if they fix their bs and make the web app actually good to use with a screenreader. There are so many projects I forgot to include in this graphic! There are also @Blender, @Kodi, @gotosocial and @godotengine only to name a few. Although I haven't checked if all of them accept donations. Maybe I'll make an updated version of the graphic soon.  Also, for most in the US donations up to about a 0.5% of their income is completely tax deductable with no documentation required @jdoe @Liberapay @opencollective That's good to know! I don't know the legal situation in the US, but where I live that only applies to donations to properly registered non-profit organisations. I know KDE is one, at least here, and Mastodon, too. @fell somewhat adjacent to this topic, but do you have any knowledge on a recommended crowdfunding platform? @DoctorBLLK Unfortunately I do not. I wish there was a crowdfunding platform with a focus on openness and transparency like Liberapay and Open Collective. However, while neither of them is really set up for crowdfunding with things like stretch goals and such, they could be used in such a way. Open Collective can collect money for a cause and Liberapay has a way of promising a certain sum. Although, unlike most crowdfunding platforms, there is no protection or refund if a project fails. @fell hmm, I guess that's part of the cost of using the existing platforms. At least a little bit of security. Thanks, and great notes on the original post, very important.  @fell @Liberapay @opencollective I would but at the moment I donate to https://www.andysplace.org.au/ which provides food for the homeless and https://savelife.in.ua/en/ which helps Ukraine fight Russia. To think if house prices weren't absurd and Russia didn't invade Ukraine I could be donating to a lot of other places instead. @fell @Liberapay @opencollective The biggest problem with small donations is comparatively big transaction costs: https://github.com/opencollective/opencollective/issues/1916 |
Gregory's Server
@fell @Liberapay @opencollective and also, as you boycott AMZN etc, libraries are amazing! Libby app for Overdrive, Hoopla for movies and more, databases for free access to magazine and newspaper articles...
Also:
Libro.fm instead of Audible
Plus:
Betterworldbooks.com and bookshop.org