FLOSS/fund for free and open source projects

Interesting that these kind of things are done by less known companies, not the big names. At least that's my (uninformed) impression.

To be fair Microsoft have been making contributions. I’ve received two $1000 contributions from them in the past couple of years.

It’s obviously not enough to give up the day job, but it dwarfs all other contributions I’ve had.

In my experience developers as a whole are very stingy, even though they complain about companies not donating to open source all the time, and complain when companies do donate but the amount is too little for their liking. (For instance, when I google “microsoft foss fund payout” the first result after the official landing page is https://lobste.rs/s/wyvnuu/microsoft_foss_fund_winner_curl complaining about the amount.)

As a data point, my open source web app for a casual game received thousands of dollars of donations (not remotely covering the development cost if we go by hourly rate but that’s never the goal), while my open source developer tool with a couple thousand stars on GitHub received <$50 over several years. I don’t beg for donations in either case, just an inconspicuous link.

Disclosure: I donate a very modest amount to various projects every year.

I hate open source and would consider myself the chief anti-open source crusader online. I always try to avoid FOSS and pay indie developers for their software. However, in a few cases I've been forced to use FOSS solutions when there's been no other alternative, and then I donate to the creator of it. And I always see the same thing. Thousands and thousands of downloads over the years and the creator has earned only a hundred dollars in donations.

It's pathetic, and just shows that most people haven't evolved spiritually beyond being freeloaders whenever they can.

No wonder millions would rather stand in line the whole day to get free bread than pay just a little for their food.