Support Open Source

I get paid tomorrow, and it’s time to spend some money. Sure, there are some great toys out there. The stuff from ThinkGeek is always great. What about that monitoring server I want? Or upgrading my LAN to gigabit copper?

Of course, there are also many charitable causes. The homeless. Cancer. Strippers without implants.

But this week, I’m going to do something different. I use Open Source software. My computers run Linux, this site is hosted by Apache, I use Firefox as a browser. I didn’t pay for any of these. But maybe I should, and the rest of us should too. What’s your favorite Open Source project? They probably accept donations. Projects like Mozilla and Apache even sell merchandise where some of the profit goes to support development. Organizations like the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) also accept donations, which they allocate to legal defense funds and grants to open-source projects.

So, this week, I’m going to do some good.

And for the rest of you, next time you notice a bug or miss a feature in an open-source project, just think… if everyone who used it donated $10, would it still be missing?