This email can be read as somewhat self serving. While I cannot deny that it is, I still think that the reasoning behind it is a valid one to apply, regardless of the case.
renaud cabrol wrote: > I'm not a developer so I give back to the open source community by > donating to the FSF a % of my incomes. > That seems strange to me. Sure, you are using stuff written by the FSF (such as the GNU toolchain), but I hardly think that is the main focus of what you do with free software. If you want to encourage the people responsible for your income, you should give money to software projects based on how specific they are to what you do. I would have expected you to donate money to Debian, for example, more than you would to the FSF. If rsyncrypto/rsync are central to what you make a living off, I would have expected you to donate to them (obvious non-objectivity warning goes here). This way you encourage exactly the technologies *you* need, rather than some abstract goal. All major projects (Debian, Apache etc.) accept donations. Many smaller projects do too (sourceforge even has a special mechanism for that through paypal. So far, rsyncrypto has recruited a whopping $9!!!). Even for projects that don't, I doubt that if you contact the relevant mailing list and say "I am using your project to make money, and would like to contribute some back. Can you give me your paypal account to send money to" you will receive "no" as an answer. Lastly, and less this email is read as criticism, I wanted to say "well done". Your idea is definitely right. I just think that your personal interests are better served by paying (no more than you do today or feel comfortable) the projects that have the greatest impact on your business, rather than the FSF who likely have relatively little influence over the specifics of your day to day FOSS use. Shachar ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Rsyncrypto-devel mailing list Rsyncrypto-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rsyncrypto-devel
