Do you $support$ the FreeBSD Foundation?

[trev]

I do... I used to susbscribe to the Walnut Creek CD-ROM sets starting back in the FreeBSD 2.0 days, but by the time 5.0 came along, Internet bandwidth downunder enabled affordable (and faster) cvsup updates. When FreeBSD 6 came out in 2005 I looked around and found the FreeBSD Foundation (founded 2000) and have been donating my $US 50 each year.

See http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/

It's even a tax deduction for US residents <envy>.

So, do you support the FreeBSD Foundation? If not, why not?

I would have added an appropriate poll, but mere mortals here are not permitted to access such advanced features for the reasons explained thus:


For now we have agreed that we will not allow general users to add polls.

[danger@]

If you guys want to add a poll to a specific thread, just go and ask one of our mods. If it looks sane to add one, we have no problem to add it.

As of the question -- I haven't donated to FreeBSD Foundation yet, however I personally contribute to the FreeBSD project ;) If I ever get to a possition to afford to spend some reasonable money, I will gladly donate to FBSDF. I am currently student and have a limited cashflow.

[graudeejs]

I'm student as well, and without job + some loan
Unfortunately I can't afford to donate to FreeBSD foundation atm.

However I want to become developer when I feel, that I have enough C knowledge

[sossego]

Unfortunately, I can't.
I make between $800 and $900 USD per month and that is used to cover all of my expenses.

[DutchDaemon]

Me and my BSD-minded colleagues here donated to the yearly FreeBSD drive (http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/) and will probably do so again.

[tangram]

I haven't donated to the FreeBSD Foundation (my income is low). However I've tried to spread FreeBSD and help fellow users either in this forum, mailing lists or in my blog.

[gnemmi]

Not directly (the dollar/peso exchange ratio is 1 dollar == 3.74 pesos and with the _really_ low salaries we get over here, making a living is almost impossible .. let alone donating money ..), yet still, I manage to get my subscription to FreeBSD (freebsdmall.com) which, AFAIK, gives money back to the FBSD Foundation .. and if it doesn't, please let me know so I can cancell it and send the money straight to the Foundation.

Regards.

[Brandybuck]

I have a FreeBSD Mall subscription (had it since 4.0 and Walnut Creek). The CDs can still be handy, as it's still faster toinstall than the average network connection.

[roddierod]

I've donated to this and Freshports in the past, but the economy and other life things have made it tough to do things like this now.

[susanth]

Something between 2$ to 19$ per year, could be done by any person; provided he/she have a real desire to support FreeBSD economically. I have done in 2008. will continue in 2009 and in future too. If we could spread this idea of donating tiny amount to FreeBSD fund, it could do miracles!!!! For example : think of 1000 peoples in this globe, donating 3$ results 3000$ !!!

For those people who are tight in fund can find at least 3$ by sacrificing something in personal life (that is how i find amount 2 donate) and find the amount. What count is the Activity/Habit of Donating (and Spreading this habit IS VERY IMPORTANT. SO AM WRITING THIS), not the size of fund in a single donation.

When comparing the amount collected in this way with the amount donated by big corporates, it may seem silly. But think of : Once the habit of making tiny donations by individuals increases: say 10,000 individuals with 3$ = 30,000$ !!!

It is easy to say NO. A reason to justify the same will be invented by our brain [ the fastest computer with best OS ;) ].

Little drops of water make the mighty ocean.

So Donate TINY AMOUNT now!! & Spread the idea in BIG SCALE.

Become Strong Advocates of TINY DONATION vai chat, blog, forums, sms, phone, face2face talk, email, ... or what ever innovative medium you can find.

See Also
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?p=5895&highlight=donation#post5895

[varnie]

being involved in Russian FreeBSD users group, namely http://www.bsdportal.ru, i've emphasized the subject and we've already donated money in this year. later there've been offers/suggestions to make donations every half of a year;)

we hope to continue the support!

[mgp]

susanth, I agree with you!
and I've just donated $20

[vivek]

My employer does donate money to project like OpenSSH, Ubunut and Debian. I'm going to ask them to add FreeBSD. Personally, I purchase stuff like T-Shirt and other stuff. So far I got stuff from Mozilla, Ubuntu, GNU project. But there are no T-shirts on http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/. Will just donate the money :)

Thanks for wonderful operating system. It pays all my bills :D

[mgp]

You could buy FreeBSD T-shirts and stuff from http://www.freebsdmall.com

[thetrojan01]

No $$$ but spread the world and telling desktop users to try fbsd.

[graudeejs]

No $$$ but spread the world and telling desktop users to try fbsd.

he he he
Just uploaded my Wallpapers to one of Latvian torrent trackers
Hopefully someone will notice it :D

[ArtemD]

I donate donated small amount this year and I want to do more in future.

P.S. For those lacking money there are lots of ways to contribute, money just happens to be one that takes the least amount of effort/time.

[vivek]

You could buy FreeBSD T-shirts and stuff from http://www.freebsdmall.com

Thanks. Is it official FreeBSD foundation store? Anyways I'm gonnna order FreeBSD jail T-Shirt :)

[susanth]

susanth, I agree with you!
and I've just donated $20

Woow! Done a Good Job. Keep it up.
Your name should be listed in sponsors page.
http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors.shtml
--"If your name is missing, please contact us at donations at freebsdfoundation dot org."--

FreeBSD lists sponsors name even if we do tiny donations!

Listing the name is important; because it attracts others /
will help to build donation as a habit.

SPREADING THIS HABIT IS IMPORTANT !!!

Keep Rocking.

[mgp]

Yes, my name is listed on the sponsors page :)
that's kind of cool :)

vivek, this is not an official FreeBSD Foundation store ... it's a totally different organization but they support FreeBSD

[susanth]

Hi FreeBSD Friends,

It will be nice to support FreeBSD 2009 Fund

Just Few more Days to 2010.

//susanth++

[mgp]

agreed!
they've risen only half of the $300k goal...that's kind of sad
I will donate today!
will you ?

[rbelk]

I donate $10 a month, I just don't eat at the fast food places that often anymore!

[FestusHagen]

When I first got involved I never imagined that it would be as successful as it is!

I met Jordan in 91-92 in a computer store in Concord, CA. (WC-CDROM was in it's infancy), We spent the better part of the day gabbing, He got me started with 386BSD and some patches!

I've supported FreeBSD every since in one way shape form or another!

I was a WC-CDROM FreeBSD subscriber from the very very beginning, Before 1.0 thru 5.something.

I thank him frequently! :)
As I set back enjoying the reaping's of that life changing experience!

I wanted to catch the M$lop wave so I defected for a period of time... I'mmmm baaaack!

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

[BlueJayofEvil]

I just donated $5. I'm short on money right now but will make more donations as my budget allows. :)

[TerryP]

If I ever win the lottery or something, I will... but until then, SAS, Vi IMproved,the FreeBSD Foundation, and a number of useful projects will have to do without my $$$.

[susanth]

I just donated $5. I'm short on money right now but will make more donations as my budget allows. :)

Done a good Job :)
Keep it up.

Let us spread the spirit to others too :)

//susanth++

[Oxyd]

Just donated $10. xD It'll be great for my health, too -- I won't be able to afford a pack or two of cigarettes now. :)

[brd@]

I'm student as well, and without job + some loan
Unfortunately I can't afford to donate to FreeBSD foundation atm.

However I want to become developer when I feel, that I have enough C knowledge

Hi Killasmurf86,

There are lots of places in FreeBSD where you can contribute that does not require C knowledge. My C knowledge is probably limited to writing a Hello World program, but I'm still a developer. I got started maintaing a few ports and then I set my sights on documentation and that is how I got my way into the project. All aspects of the project can use help, not just programming. So anything you see that could be improved, docs/ports/src you can make a patch and send it in. :)

[danger@]

that's pretty much how I got my commit bit too :-)

[brd@]

Yup, and most of the committers that are here on the forums and most of the ones that run it are not src committers. :)

[graudeejs]

Hi Killasmurf86,

There are lots of places in FreeBSD where you can contribute that does not require C knowledge. My C knowledge is probably limited to writing a Hello World program, but I'm still a developer. I got started maintaing a few ports and then I set my sights on documentation and that is how I got my way into the project. All aspects of the project can use help, not just programming. So anything you see that could be improved, docs/ports/src you can make a patch and send it in. :)

Cool, but currently I have no time... (for past few months and for next few)
I was going to help with FreeBSD TexLive project ;)

btw... recently I reworked 1 old patch for FreeBSD (lv_LV locale support), that got commited :)
I also send bugreports for all bugs that I can find....

And time to time I create OpenOffice packages... [Now waiting for FreeBSD-8-Stable, to create new packages.... Hopefully for all languages]

Also when I have time, I want to try to port Scilab5 and Lyx16 to FreeBSD

So that's pretty much how I contribute for now....

Also I learn C everyday, rapidly.... and improve my skills :)
Hopefully I'll soon be able to contribute more :)


About the documentation stuff.. I don't feel like fitting there, because for last few months I feel it's getting harder for me to express myself. And my spelling and gramer sux.

[brd@]

Good to hear :)

[graudeejs]

I use scilab as calculator
I know it's a bit overkill ;)

But sometimes I do vertex math

I was pretty surprised to find out that scilab in ports is v4 when v5 is out ;)

[brd@]

Send a patch :)

You might talk to the maintainer and see if they have plans on updating it or if it is in progress before you start. Unpaid volunteers can be a bit slow to update :)

[Mikael]

I'm new to FreeBSD and I absolutely love it! (Just donated $20.)

[m87carlson]

I just made my contribution to the FreeBSD Foundation and I'm glad to see others are doing it as well.

[anomie]

I'm debt free as of November, so I donated to both the FreeBSD Foundation and OpenSSH (well, the OpenBSD project, which maintains OpenSSH) for the first time ever.

Those are two very important pieces of software that have made my life better - literally. Glad to finally be able to contribute something more than trolling around a couple forums. ;)

[varnie]

Good day, buddies! It's been a while since my last visit, but there're good news: Russian FreeBSD community named bsdportal.ru (http://www.bsdportal.ru) successfully contributed ~ $550 this winter to the FreeBSD Foundation project (i remind we contributed in the previous year too).

Too sad i've been unable to take participation there because of my absence these days (nobody reminded me, unfortunately). But i've just contributed to FreeBSD Foundation project few minutes ago!:h

Enough said. All the best to FreeBSD folks!:f

[Jago]

I have donated 30-50 euro / year since 2008. I've also contributed some patches to ports and documentation over the years.

[gcooper@]

I typically help by donating hardware to developers and time (on hands volunteering mostly, but also some coding, patches, helping, etc), but I need to get into the habit of donating $$$ to the project too...

[DutchDaemon]

You can set up a recurring donation using https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=19885 - that's how I did it anyway. You'll need a credit card, though.

[Ico]

Well I just donated a small amount as well. I am graduating soon with a master's degree though, so I hope to be able to contribute more often and larger amounts. :)

Thank you FreeBSD!

[chrcol]

I have made a cash donation.

I have offered to pay dev's to fix long standing bugs.

I have offered servers to be portsnap mirrors.

I am likely to offer server's to be used to reduce length of port freeze's.

[tankist02]

Have donated some cash for the last few years; bought some mugs and stickers from the mall; bought a few FreeBSD books, including all by Dru Lavigne.

Now working on winning a lottery and sponsor sysinstall upgrade. :)

[varnie]

that's awesome, friends! Long days to FreeBSD.

[jotawski]

in money, not yet but in mind, yes
have a look at some blog from barng-kork or from park-kred.
my current project is to deal with freebsd in particular, among the many things.

[varnie]

this thread needs to be sticked on top so it always be easily recognizable and visible. at least i would wish so.

[Caliante]

I voted yes although I did not pay any money to the foundation, but I am going to shortly.

I have been messing around with FreeBSD for a couple of years now, on and off, installing it, not getting it to work, wanting to to get it to work but simply don't having the time to dive into it, and thus reverting back to Windows (I don't like Linux, no mud throwing but I tried that as early as 1994 and up untill 2007 but for some reason I always ended up with a broken system. Well, the same has been the case for FreeBSD many times, but what I do like is that FreeBSD has a very rigid development model, as opposed to Linux).

Currently I have FreeBSD 8 running and I bow to all those that developed it; you can just feel that it does things better than sluggish Windows.

So I will donate shortly, time to pay back my debt - where I would wish I could donate to the good cause of having the developers take a nice beer on my account; they more than deserve it as they offer a way out of the Windows nightmare, passing Linux and OS-X right to the real thing :P

[Caliante]

have a look at some blog from barng-kork or from park-kred.


I looked at the log in your sig but I have to admit my Thai is a bittle rusty (:e): I only see Asian symbols and I can't understand that :r

;)

[Caliante]

Decided to put my money where my mouth is (I could be dead tomorrow :stud).

Donated.

[mgp]

I just donated $20 to the FreeBSD foundation.
Did you?

[alie]

Yes, definitely because i love FreeBSD a lot!

[tingo]

It's that time of the year; time to think about what has happened, what I have done, and what tools I have used. FreeBSD is one such tool, so it is with a happy heart I donate a small amount of money to the FreeBSD Foundation. And to all involved with FreeBSD; thank you!

[ITPhoenix]

I am a beginner programmer with most of my computing experience with MS.
A friend convinced me to try openSUSE, so I unfortunately did. I inadvertantly stumbled upon this site while searching in Wikipedia for an OS that would lend itself to a Helios system.

Immediately noticeable is this site was intelligently organized and easy to negotiate. The forum setup is also top-notch. PC-BSD has been successfully installed on an old, Pentium III Dell I picked out of the garbage in front of the house, and upgraded it to 512MB RAM and a 64MB video card! I did some poking around and was quite pleased it ran a DVD movie perfectly without the need for codecs. Overall, I am quite impressed.

I have only supported one free supplier in the past when I needed some code for a website. I did not even get a thank you!

For the above reasons, and if all goes well with experimenting with FreeBSD, I will be making a donation. I may also purchase a programming manual as soon as I find one. I thought I saw something but forgot what and where it was.

[UNIXgod]

I am a beginner programmer with most of my computing experience with MS.
A friend convinced me to try openSUSE, so I unfortunately did. I inadvertantly stumbled upon this site while searching in Wikipedia for an OS that would lend itself to a Helios system.

Immediately noticeable is this site was intelligently organized and easy to negotiate. The forum setup is also top-notch. PC-BSD has been successfully installed on an old, Pentium III Dell I picked out of the garbage in front of the house, and upgraded it to 512MB RAM and a 64MB video card! I did some poking around and was quite pleased it ran a DVD movie perfectly without the need for codecs. Overall, I am quite impressed.

I have only supported one free supplier in the past when I needed some code for a website. I did not even get a thank you!

For the above reasons, and if all goes well with experimenting with FreeBSD, I will be making a donation. I may also purchase a programming manual as soon as I find one. I thought I saw something but forgot what and where it was.

http://freebsd.org/handbook

[rambetter]

The stock market has been treating me extremely well so I donated $500.

[manefesto]

we donate: "http://forum.lissyara.su/ community"
we trying make donate in this year

[sk8harddiefast]

I never made a donation because I have no paypal. But I want to make one and then probably I will donate too. I have no job so not enough money but I could give 10-20 euro.

[Pushrod]

I'm strapped for actual cash these days, but I am capable of helping by using my bandwidth. I won't be stopping the 8.2-RELEASE torrents until they cross 1TB of upload.

[dareni]

Does everyone bill their customers for FreeBSD installations. I don't have customers yet but when; they will be billed to financially support FreeBSD.

[nestux]

Not yet, but I will...I want buy some books from FreeBSD Mall (http://www.freebsdmall.com/cgi-bin/fm)

[lockfile]

I just donated $10 today May 1, 2011.

[ian-nai]

I would if I had a job...hopefully my recent FreeBSD experience will help toward that end.

[vivek]

I never made a donation because I have no paypal. But I want to make one and then probably I will donate too. I have no job so not enough money but I could give 10-20 euro.

I always used CC without paypal account. They do support CC http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/

[lockfile]

I'm strapped for actual cash these days, but I am capable of helping by using my bandwidth. I won't be stopping the 8.2-RELEASE torrents until they cross 1TB of upload.

That's pretty cool. Use your plebian pipes!

[cgigeek]

I have donated to freshports, and have our own repo which we share with others so in a way I am donating by not using the official repo, will make a point to donate when I get paid this month.

[hopspitfire]

I've donated personally in the past, but hopefully when the fiscal year ends I can make a larger donation from my company.

[soulreaver1]

I've donated FreeBSD Foundation today. It was only 5$, but hope that in the future I shall donate much more. It worth!

[tingo]

Yes, it is nice to get a reminder now and then. I've donated today!

[DutchDaemon]

You can set up automatic yearly contributions. No need for reminders ;)

[cgigeek]

Just donated, still trying to sell the idea to my partners to donate as a company. One thing that I think would help though is (at least in this margin driven world) if the goal is 400K, 1K would be a significant donation, for at least some if not many, which is evident by the donors in the 1k-5k ranges being about 12 every year, give that donor range an icon/link :)

For some of us is love, others have calculators.

Have yourselves a merry X-mas and a happy new year. :P

[redhead88]

As of the question -- I haven't donated to FreeBSD Foundation yet, however I personally contribute to the FreeBSD project ;)

If I ever get to a position to afford to spend some reasonable money, I will gladly donate to the FreeBSD Foundation. I am currently a student and have a limited cashflow.

Other more important bills such as celluar phone at nearly 100 USD due to being a heavy mobile data user and lack of self control on purchases are stunting me in the donation department. Damn x(

[alie]

I've noticed the list of donors gets shorter and shorter every year:
http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors.shtml

[DutchDaemon]

That doesn't mean that less money is raised. I also see that my recurring yearly donation (each July) hasn't even registered yet, so it's not up to date.

[SNK]

A lot of donations are probably made at year-end. Here I just donated $100 and will likely bump it up a notch when I finish university.

Btw, the Foundation seems to have quite some cash (and equivalents) on hand: $800k. You can find the "balance sheet" at http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/documents/2011%20Q1-Q3%20Balance%20Sheet.pdf and the "income statement" (of Q1-3) at http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/documents/2011%20Q1-Q3%20Profit%20Loss.pdf.

[aragon]

Another 2011 donor of $100. :)

[SNK]

http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/

Perhaps still a bit premature, but it seems that last year's goal of $400k got reached. I wonder how the updated list of donors will look like. Perhaps Tarsnap has become a huge cash cow.

[hadrons123]

Last time I checked the link (http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/) it was barely $300K.Happy to know that generous people could help to reach the target what it is right now.

[Rasmussener]

Not directly (in the dollar / peso exchange ratio is $ 1 == 3.74 pesos and _really_ low wages we get here, money is almost impossible .. let alone money to donate ..), but I manage my subscription on FreeBSD (freebsdmall.com), which, as far as I know, gives money back to the FreeBSD Foundation .. and if not, let me know so I can cancel and stay upright to send money to the Foundation.