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Website to fund GPL software development!
There has been times in the past where I've had some hardware that won't work because there just isn't any drivers written for it.
This is usually because the hardware is made by some small Taiwanese company the like of which is very common and so not enough people own it for a backend to have been coded.
There's surely plenty of people in the same situation all the time.
Personally I would always contribute £5 to the development of a GPL driver, perhaps more if I already own the equipment and I'd lose money to sell it; if I stood to lose £50 by selling I'd be prepared to contribute £50 to get a driver working.
Now, what if there are another 200 people world wide who are also prepared to pay £5 for a driver?
Is there a site where people can get together on something like this. rentacoder.com is no good since it's totally GPL incompatible; they demand rights over the code!
If not, why not? - Let's start one!
Hardware support doesn't have to be the only thing people can spend their money on.
Of course you can always donote to individual projects and without this projects like The Linux Documentation Project and Linux From Scratch wouldn't exist, so please do! However, I'm sure a lot more people would be prepared to donate if:
- they know exactly where the money is going
- they benefit directly
Please discuss the idea on freenode and generally spread the word if you think it's a good idea. If it's been done before then ditto, and please tell me where a site like this is.
I'm sure this would be more productive than having lots of little sites with a donate button at the bottom relying on good will. Always appeal to self-interest. Viva-la-revolucion.
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