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I'm pretty sure hundreds of large companies make donations, allow employees time to work on FOSS, and so on. Still awesome to see duckduckgo do it of course.

• Matt_Cutts 16y ago
  I like Google's Summer of Code program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code . If you can get programmers writing open-source code when they're still students, a fair number of them might continue to contribute to open source over their career. I really like Gabriel's idea too. Donations to open-source (or groups like the EFF) are great for the net.
  • ideamonk 16y ago
    And a few of the students even donate all the money they get from Google Summer of Code program. Atleast one of my friend did this - http://www.python.org/psf/donations/ http://www.python.org/psf/donations/ [ #2 Shashwat Anand ]
    • cdibona 16y ago
      Also, a fair number of whole projects take the organization donation and donate that to organizations like the FSF and SFLC. (they get 500$ for each student they mentor) Chris (disclaimer: googler)
• avar 16y ago
  They make donations. But they don't donate 10% of their yearly revenue, even though their business often completely depends on FOSS software.
  • axod 16y ago
    A company on the stock market owes it to investors to make them a return. Donating 10% of revenue away, wouldn't go down too well with average Joes pension scheme. Also I'm not sure any big company 'completely depends' on FOSS. Yes it's an awesome thing, but big companies would survive just fine without it.
    • bricestacey 16y ago
      > Also I'm not sure any big company 'completely depends' on FOSS. Yes it's an awesome thing, but big companies would survive just fine without it The cost of non-FOSS is often a barrier to entry. I'd wager most companies would never exist without FOSS providing the initial setup. This is an assumption, but take DDG as an example with $20,000 in revenues. If they licensed all their servers from Microsoft, they might easily be in the red from that investment alone.
    • pbhjpbhj 16y ago
      >Donating 10% of revenue away, wouldn't go down too well with average Joes pension scheme. Presumably then "average Joes pension scheme" can go elsewhere to try and achieve a better return. What you're saying is that companies can't be generous because they have to satisfy the lust of the owners for more and more money. Basically some are happy to ride on the coattails of others who more than likely see the innate Kantian imperative in aiding FOSS that has benefited them (and hence their dependents) in no small part. If no one gives anything (time/money/resources) to FOSS then it will die out. 10% of revenue may well be too much but some reflection of the saving made (if any) would seem reasonable and likely to produce future benefits.
  • jrwoodruff 16y ago
    DDG did say that after 2011 it would be 10% of income rather than revenue. I assume that's because at this point they are barely breaking even...