I have nothing against paying for quality software even if it's not open-source. I pay for Plex, Symfonium (Android) and Kagi. What I hate is yet another subscription for terribly software.
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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I mean, I proudly wired 100 euros to Graphene simply because how awesome it is.
Insert the super fancy Tux for donating more for the FOSS than you would have paid for the proprietary software π€΄
Buying ~~$10~~ $1000 Proprietary Software
~~Donating $10 to FOSS Software~~ Subscribing to the FOSS Software Patron Tier for $10/mo
I know this is super weird but, I kinda like seeing a buy button on stuff like "elementaryOS" or "Zorin OS", its essentially just an donation, but I think especially for normal people its that extra "professionalism" which makes it looks like yet another "normal" OS to consider.
One software please
I donate to the most important projects out there: Servo, PostmarketOS, F-Droid, Signal (from time to time).
Wikipedia? It's not software but worth donating to.
there's also the Internet Archive if one's looking for something to donate to :)
I donated couple of times. Aren't they doing really well financially? If they will put the big banner asking for money again I will give again :)
I'm also subscribing local newspaper even though the amount of trackers they have is ridiculous and The Guardian. Good journalism is also very important.
I just need a way to spend money so the banner goes away.
I've given more to FOSS projects in the last year since ditching with does than I gave Microsoft in the 20 before it.
Same, I've paid/donated far more for my FOSS than I ever did for proprietary software.
Buying software for 10 bucks isn't even bad. Buying a license, which can be revoked at any time, is.
I remember buying a CD set of FreeBSD 3.3 back in the day. Partially to support the project, and partially because the alternative was to download it over 33.6baud where I paid per minute.
in the early 00s my Dad and I bought a copy of Linux Mandrake from a Software ETC. didn't have much of a choice in the matter as unless you were in university or something that was the only way of getting it.
Man did we fuck up the family PC trying to install that thing. Came with a massive manual and my Dad figured he could do it cause he kinda sorta not really knew DOS. me? I knew how to put ram and a cpu in a computer. we were not prepared.
Unless you were in BFE, there were options for getting Linux delivered in the mid 90s.
I know I bought a Red hat 4 (not to be confused with RHEL) CD in the late 90s from some mail order thing.
This was actually "fill out a form and mail it". And they offered legit nearly every major distro. I think they even sold printed out copies of HOWTOs.
But it was quite cheap. Iirc it wasn't much more than postage and a small fee to cover time and materials.
And I paid C.O.D.
This wasn't a secret...I think I found the site either from usenet or EFnet #linux... but it wasn't like going to CompUSA.
I also remember seeing Walnut Creek FreeBSD and Slackware CDs at a nearby flea market (Flea@MIT) around then, too. Probably also the computer fairs as well.
I try and donate where I can, but stuff like Signal, that refuses to employ engineers outside of the US because "talent doesn't exist anywhere else" is where I draw the line. Yes, opensource donations are amazing, but not for projects with attitudes like that.
No-one deserves your donations, but that sounds like you're letting perfect get in the way of good. There are tons of things that speak for Signal. They made the whisper protocol and they consistently protect privacy where they can. I've used it for years (meaning I've actively generated costs for them without any revenue), and that qualifies as good for me.
I donate at least 1k a year to opensource. There is no shortage of good opensource projects deserving donations; good in the sense of quality and those that fit into my worldview.
I'm a fierce believer in remunerating opensource and of way stronger political opinions. What I won't donate to, is this idea that the US is the only place on the planet where skilled workers exist that can do this type of work. Orgs believing in US execeptionalism are great. Go be exceptional, just without my money. They won't miss it.
yeah you really have to be careful sometimes when you want to donate within the FOSS community. Like Hyprland or Kitty. I wouldn't give those dudes a dime.
Whoa, that's so toxic. I'm glad I switched my donation to Delta. Plus it just feels so much better to use.
I don't have evidence for this but Signal feels just like an app right before it's sold off to a megacorp. I can't put my finger on it...
Is that really the case? I work for a multi national FLOSS organisation but every additional country you want to hire from requires additional compliance overhead so in practice we generally hire from countries where we already have the legal setup to employee people.
How big an org is Signal?
I'd have to find their blog post again where they reveal their financials. IIRC it was 50 staff and each was earning half a million or something on average. Maybe I read or remember it wrong but the blog post or comments by Signal staff (maybe even the CEO?) were quite elitist regarding their reasons for hiring US staff or staff living in the US only.
What the true reasons are I dont know. Maybe indeed multinational hiring is just too complicated, who knows, but the way the responses were worded were maybe unfortunate, but at revealing for me.
That's a strange way to say that you just made everything up in your previous post.
I've given a lot more money to the Krita Foundation than any other graphics applications combined. Every time there's an update I'm like "woaaah awesome taek mi monies!!"
Every time π«‘
I wanna suck that pangwin's cock
π§π§
I donate to Codeberg and do kofi to linux content creators (many of whom have been a life saver) and whatever random neat FOSS CLI or TUI I come across. I also donate to dnkl who is the dev of Foot and Fuzzel.
If it's something I like and I use daily then I donate.
What if i buy the OSS software on a Proprietary site like Steam?
Why would you?
support both the website and the OSS software?
Does steam that is a monopolist when it comes to gaming stores even need your support?
Probably not.
Straight into the gutter
1000000000%
"buy me a coffee / lunch / beer" 1000% Everytime.
Where do the active code contributors to FOSS software exist on this scale?
What scale?
The scale of penguin beaks, obviously.
Donating monthly is way more fulfilling that being fored to pay monthly subscriptions.