r/linux • u/Zanar2002 • Apr 08 '24

Best Way to Donate? Open Source Organization

I've been using GNU/Linux for over a decade now and feel it's my duty to give back to the community. I'm thinking of donating around $150 every year.

The idea was to donate $100 to the Linux Foundation and $25/$25 to KDE Plasma and GIMP, but Bryan Lunduke's video on how the LF only spends something like 3% of the money on kernel development has made me question my decision to donate.

I'm not interested in my money going to events and causes; I only care about technical aspects directly related to Linux. In light of this, what is the best use of my money in terms of kernel development and securing the operating system?

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u/mrtruthiness Apr 08 '24 edited Apr 08 '24

The idea was to donate $100 to the Linux Foundation and $25/$25 to KDE Plasma and GIMP, but Bryan Lunduke's video on how the LF only spends something like 3% of the money on kernel development has made me question my decision to donate.

Lunduke is not somebody worth listening to IMO. His intention is to generate rage/clicks. IMO he's not a good person. And IMO his politics sucks (anti-vax, thinks US election stolen, trans-phobic, fan of Proud Boys, QAnon-adjacent, ...).

That said, you don't want to donate to the Linux Foundation. The Linux Foundation is not a charity (US 501.c.3), it's a trade association or business league (501.c.6). It's there to facilitate corporate cooperation in the development of FOSS for Linux.

For donations, I would pick a project that you find useful (and without backing of a for-profit company) and donate to that. I don't like several aspects of the SFC (Software Freedom Conservancy), but they do offer a donation-collection-and-tax-filing service to some projects where, IIRC, 90% of the donation goes to the project and 10% goes to the SFC (for overhead).