4 ms·

Become an Official Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter

65 points by jcn 12y ago

jcn 12y ago
"Conservancy assists FLOSS project leaders by handling all matters other than software development and documentation, so the developers can focus on what they do best: improving the software for the public good." All of their projects: http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/ http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/
- notjackma 12y ago
  I would donate but only if 100% of the money goes toward the projects and not social causes such as teaching x/y/z to code or an outreach program for demographic a/b/c (looking at Gnome Foundation and Mozilla here).
  - jgrowl 12y ago
    That's your prerogative, but doesn't more exposure mean more potential future contributors?
    - angersock 12y ago
      You say this like it's unconditionally a good thing. Consider a lot of the pain with Gnome, systemd, pulseaudio, etc. More cooks isn't always a good thing.
      - andreasvc 12y ago
        I don't think that pain is caused by "more cooks", but rather by the dominance of Red Hat.
  - jcn 12y ago
    Not sure about their financials, but they're pretty transparent overall. Some of their internal policies (linked from that support page) are in their git repo https://gitorious.org/conservancy/policies https://gitorious.org/conservancy/policies and their list of services seems pretty clear: http://sfconservancy.org/members/services/ http://sfconservancy.org/members/services/
    - mlinksva 12y ago
      Their tax filings are at http://sfconservancy.org/about/filings/ http://sfconservancy.org/about/filings/ and a couple explanatory posts http://sfconservancy.org/blog/?tag=filings http://sfconservancy.org/blog/?tag=filings One of the organization's staff (but not as an official activity, afaik) has a repository of filings of many free/open type organizations, https://gitorious.org/floss-foundations/npo-public-filings/ https://gitorious.org/floss-foundations/npo-public-filings/ which is useful for comparison purposes, and welcomes contributions of info (most of it is available elsewhere on the web, but can be hard to find). Perhaps ought to be a website.
  - fijal 12y ago
    If you want to donate to a project (e.g. twisted, wine, whatever), 90% goes to the project and 10% goes to the SFC. The 10% is mostly covering operational costs as the SFC is incredibly helpful. We (PyPy) are working with them for quite a bit and we spend the 90% either earmarked for the specific proposals or on sprint accomodation/travel/etc. if you don't wish to specify the proposal.
  - vdaniuk 12y ago
    I was already considering donating a meaningful amount, but now I will donate double to compensate for the effect your absurd statement might had on HN readers.
  - daveloyall 12y ago
    Every time I see comments like this I can't help but imagine that we've all become the victims of some elaborate cointelpro scheme.
- paroneayea 12y ago
  I've donated... Conservancy does good for a lot of great projects. Heck, if you're using / developing FOSS, you're pretty much 100% guaranteed to be helped by the work Conservancy is doing. I wrote here about why I'm supporting, and why you should too: http://dustycloud.org/blog/donate-to-conservancy/
dyadic 12y ago
It really pains me to be critical of what is a good thing, but I do wish that they would hire a designer for their website. There seems to be a rejection of design in OSS (less so these days, I admit). I really like the idea of judging software solely on how it stands alone, but people don't do that, and to many this will just come across as amateur.
- daveloyall 12y ago
  Yes. Also, their available payment options seem a little behind the times.
  - nine_k 12y ago
    What option are you missing? Bitcoin?
  - bkuhn 12y ago
    I think you'll find that it's very difficult to set up other payment options with 100% Free Software. If Conservancy were willing to use proprietary software on our website for payment options, we could probably implement others somewhat easily. PayPal is annoying, but at least it integrates easily and doesn't require you to install proprietary Javascript or the like on your own website (like stripe.com does). Bitcoin is possible to do with 100% Free Software, but it's very difficult to set up. I think most people don't realize how much work goes into these things. Most non-profit organizations have a huge staff that can set up things like this. Conservancy doesn't.
    - daveloyall 12y ago
      Bradley Kuhn? :) $ sudo apt-get install bitcoind $ mkdir ~/.bitcoin $ echo rpcpassword=password! > ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf $ chmod 600 ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf $ bitcoind -testnet & $ bitcoind -testnet getnewaddress SomeStringCalledAccount Note the -testnet bit. I don't actually have any idea how bitcoin works. The commands above created a lot of binary files under ~/.bitcoin/testnet3 and spit out a magic-looking string: mr2c2XZwe55xYPqVUkQ8sroi6X674UXJmb ... which I think people could use right now to send me test money on the test net. Anyone: Does my bitcoind even need to be running for them to do that?

65 points by jcn 12y ago

jcn 12y ago

"Conservancy assists FLOSS project leaders by handling all matters other than software development and documentation, so the developers can focus on what they do best: improving the software for the public good." All of their projects: http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/ http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/

notjackma 12y ago
I would donate but only if 100% of the money goes toward the projects and not social causes such as teaching x/y/z to code or an outreach program for demographic a/b/c (looking at Gnome Foundation and Mozilla here).
- jgrowl 12y ago
  That's your prerogative, but doesn't more exposure mean more potential future contributors?
  - angersock 12y ago
    You say this like it's unconditionally a good thing. Consider a lot of the pain with Gnome, systemd, pulseaudio, etc. More cooks isn't always a good thing.
    - andreasvc 12y ago
      I don't think that pain is caused by "more cooks", but rather by the dominance of Red Hat.
- jcn 12y ago
  Not sure about their financials, but they're pretty transparent overall. Some of their internal policies (linked from that support page) are in their git repo https://gitorious.org/conservancy/policies https://gitorious.org/conservancy/policies and their list of services seems pretty clear: http://sfconservancy.org/members/services/ http://sfconservancy.org/members/services/
  - mlinksva 12y ago
    Their tax filings are at http://sfconservancy.org/about/filings/ http://sfconservancy.org/about/filings/ and a couple explanatory posts http://sfconservancy.org/blog/?tag=filings http://sfconservancy.org/blog/?tag=filings One of the organization's staff (but not as an official activity, afaik) has a repository of filings of many free/open type organizations, https://gitorious.org/floss-foundations/npo-public-filings/ https://gitorious.org/floss-foundations/npo-public-filings/ which is useful for comparison purposes, and welcomes contributions of info (most of it is available elsewhere on the web, but can be hard to find). Perhaps ought to be a website.
- fijal 12y ago
  If you want to donate to a project (e.g. twisted, wine, whatever), 90% goes to the project and 10% goes to the SFC. The 10% is mostly covering operational costs as the SFC is incredibly helpful. We (PyPy) are working with them for quite a bit and we spend the 90% either earmarked for the specific proposals or on sprint accomodation/travel/etc. if you don't wish to specify the proposal.
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  I was already considering donating a meaningful amount, but now I will donate double to compensate for the effect your absurd statement might had on HN readers.
- daveloyall 12y ago
  Every time I see comments like this I can't help but imagine that we've all become the victims of some elaborate cointelpro scheme.
paroneayea 12y ago
I've donated... Conservancy does good for a lot of great projects. Heck, if you're using / developing FOSS, you're pretty much 100% guaranteed to be helped by the work Conservancy is doing. I wrote here about why I'm supporting, and why you should too: http://dustycloud.org/blog/donate-to-conservancy/

dyadic 12y ago

It really pains me to be critical of what is a good thing, but I do wish that they would hire a designer for their website. There seems to be a rejection of design in OSS (less so these days, I admit). I really like the idea of judging software solely on how it stands alone, but people don't do that, and to many this will just come across as amateur.

daveloyall 12y ago
Yes. Also, their available payment options seem a little behind the times.
- nine_k 12y ago
  What option are you missing? Bitcoin?
- bkuhn 12y ago
  I think you'll find that it's very difficult to set up other payment options with 100% Free Software. If Conservancy were willing to use proprietary software on our website for payment options, we could probably implement others somewhat easily. PayPal is annoying, but at least it integrates easily and doesn't require you to install proprietary Javascript or the like on your own website (like stripe.com does). Bitcoin is possible to do with 100% Free Software, but it's very difficult to set up. I think most people don't realize how much work goes into these things. Most non-profit organizations have a huge staff that can set up things like this. Conservancy doesn't.
  - daveloyall 12y ago
    Bradley Kuhn? :) $ sudo apt-get install bitcoind $ mkdir ~/.bitcoin $ echo rpcpassword=password! > ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf $ chmod 600 ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf $ bitcoind -testnet & $ bitcoind -testnet getnewaddress SomeStringCalledAccount Note the -testnet bit. I don't actually have any idea how bitcoin works. The commands above created a lot of binary files under ~/.bitcoin/testnet3 and spit out a magic-looking string: mr2c2XZwe55xYPqVUkQ8sroi6X674UXJmb ... which I think people could use right now to send me test money on the test net. Anyone: Does my bitcoind even need to be running for them to do that?