I'm using mepis and would like to contribute, but I'm really not sure what to do. The reason is that I know mepis uses ubuntu as their base, so if it wasn't for ubuntu mepis might not be where it's at now and for that fact ubuntu wouldn't be where it's at now if it wasn't for debian or both wouldn't be there if it wasn't for debian.

I guess my question is there a way to contribute to all these by contributing money to one place? Since I'm using mepis I'd like to make a large contribution to Warren and his team, but I don't want to neglect ubuntu/debian. Is there any type of charity that basically takes money and gives it out to those who help open source code projects?

The reason is I'd also like to contribute money to projects that I like, such as k3b or ones that I'd like to see continue the work, but I don't want to leave other projects out of my contributions who have helped with their work.

So it would be nice if there's a place I could contribute money to that helps out all the developers and then maybe I could just contribute to Mepis themsevles?

Thanks in advance

I haven't heard about any single group handing out any financial support to open source projects.
There are often differences of opinion between projects, which is what spawns the offshoot project.

nope, simplyMephis isn't based on Ubuntu, it has been around long before Ubuntu was.

a single donation that would have the broadest support for open source projects would be to donate to sourceforge, gnu.org or savannah.org [ last two are tied together, savannah is the gnu source repository and project site that compares to sourceforge. ]
Sourceforge doesn't actually need financial donations, VASoftware, the owners, sell licenses for using the sourceforge collaboration software at very high rates, which pays for the development and funds sourceforge. they do ask for and accept mirrors, if you have an OC3 internet connection.

You will most likely be best to give donations to the project(s) you want to support directly.

editing to add:

OK, there is a group that does fund projects, I just found a link to them on php.net..

http://www.linuxfund.org/

I was mistaken in thinking there was no such group

It is now based on Ubuntu. Last year they moved their distro base from Debian to Ubuntu.

In terms of contributing, I don't think there is one single organisation that you can give money and it shares it out between different projects. You will have to pick and choose which projects or distros you contribute to directly.

It's kind of a shame there's not a place that has a large place that can collect money, because sometimes we don't know where to donate to. At my job there's a charity organization that has a thick book with all these places you can donate money from red cross to scholarships for certain types of students. The most popular donation is not one of the single ones, but an organization that equally donates the money that's receieved equally among the charaties as long as the charities don't keep more than say 10% for their own personal profit.

I really like linux, but who is to say that one application is more important than another application. Without applications such as k3b, vlc media player, gimp, firefox, openoffice I wouldn't be using Mepis to be honest. I do relieze some of these applications might not need donations, but there could be other applications that do need donations and I might not relieze it. Like I said it's kind of hard to send money just to mepis, when it's based off of ubuntu and hard to send money just to ubuntu when it's based off of debian. I do realize that sending money to one of them and for them to increase the work it benefits every one since it's open code. Meaning that if Mepis makes a huge improvement, it can be shared amonst everyone, but seems like some projects might be getting less contributions, because less people might be intrestd in a certain project.

For instance I can say that firefox and openoffice are as good if not better than what windows has to offer, even though it can run in windows. But I haven't seen a replacement for software such as daemon-tools or alcohol software yet. I've seen only applications attempting to come close, but nothing in my opinion remotely close. This software is probably more imporant to me than others, yet there's software out there that I might realize I need developers working on like I would have never known about berly or think I need something like that until I started to use it.

If I only have 100 dollars to donate and so does everybody else I'd love to see one place that where I could donate and be sure it's going to the right places. Then I'd prefer to put extra towards my own intrests such as say Mepis or some type of daemon-tools clone...etc