Ask HN: Easiest Way to Donate for FOSS?

12 points by zorrow331 4 years ago | 9 comments

I use software from loads of open source project, just by running my computer and using the internet. What's the simplest way to support all/most projects I use fiscally?

Is it to pick one or two projects I particularly like and give there? Or donate to a large foundation like the fsf and let them spread the love?

andrewkdinh 4 years ago |

Some options I know of are Liberapay [0], OpenCollective [1], and GitHub Sponsors [2]. Best way would probably be to view each FOSS project’s page and see which they accept. A little tedious but you can set a recurring donation and forget about it. There’s also sometimes an option to discover projects you can donate to like on OpenCollective.

[0] https://liberapay.com/

[1] https://opencollective.com/

[2] https://github.com/sponsors

edoceo 4 years ago |

Many projects have a Patreon or similar but you'd find them directly.

Also, GitHub has a service too.

Foundation money goes mostly to the foundation so I try to send the money directly to the project

ev1 4 years ago |

I would be curious about this too. I'm not a fan of using Patreon and their incredibly asinine policies (eg: no debit cards, no virtual cards, no OTP cards, credit only, otherwise arbitrary failures).

But anything that is "direct" for donations results in problems - by directly, I mean not going through a fee-eating third party that middlemans it. For example, numerous developer that I try to support with PayPal I will get the error "this payment can't be completed due to regulations" - apparently it is not possible to send to certain countries with paypal. Also known as: the places where those developers need it the most, compared to US/EU.

And for US banks, even sending small amounts to numerous western EU people all over the place near instantly triggers "cancel your card for fraud" safety checks.

The easiest way that is the least troublesome would be to donate to FSF or similar - but this means I can't choose where my impact goes, and the people whose software I use are likely to never see a sixpence of that donation.

tbabej 4 years ago | |

Have you tried donating to OSS through Github Sponsors? They act like a middleman (similar to Patreon), but take no fees (the also eat the CC processing fee), so the full amount being donated goes to the project.

This gets rid of the problem with multiple micro-payments, because all of your recurring donations are charged in bulk, once per billing cycle (monthly/yearly).

That said, not every project is on Github or has Github Sponsors feature enabled, but anecdotally the number seems to be growing over time.

jensvdh 4 years ago |

FlossBank has a pretty good approach for this use case. https://flossbank.com/

sloaken 4 years ago | |

Wow that is fantastic. I did not know it existed. Only question I would have, is how much is spent on overhead. I know I am being a bit paranoid, but I have donated to too many charities that were just a money making scheme.

zorrow331 4 years ago | |

This is exactly what I was envisioning. Sadly it only works with npm and yarn, not apt etc.

satya71 4 years ago |

If you are working at a business with good revenue, Tidelift[1] may be an option.

[1] https://tidelift.com/

orionblastar 4 years ago |

I donated to HaikuOS and ReactOS because I want a better FOSS that isn't Linux.