my main point here is that there is space between $50 and $100,000. Assuming OpenSSL doesn't have infrastructure, my suggestion is that they try to charge as m

my main point here is that there is space between $50 and $100,000. Assuming OpenSSL doesn't have infrastructure, my suggestion is that they try to charge as much as they can and still stay under the level where you need sales. $1000, from experience, is below the level where you need per-user sales. >Selling something online, could work but the question is what do they get for their money? a t-shirt, name on website etc. Though in a world of kickstarter it could work if done right. This is a $50/yr deal for most which is 20k people to get to that same $100k with a lot more community work to keep up with those people. http://www.netbsd.org/donations http://www.netbsd.org/donations http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors http://mirrors.centos.org/sponsors/ http://mirrors.centos.org/sponsors/ I would suggest that for corporate sponsors, you make it more clear than Theo does that you are buying advertising, not donating money. I think selling a "I helped pay for software you use" website badge is a good way of doing that... but look at the mirrors.centos.org sponsors page. You are very clearly buying advertising space, in that case. Heck, the CAs charge a lot of money for badges that mean nothing; The OpenSSL people could create a similar badge. "OpenSSL developer club auxiliary" or something.