Ask HN: What projects do you donate to? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#201

Post by htk » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:39 PM UTC

I used to donate to wikipedia, but after seeing how wikimedia spends the money I stopped. Just like Mozilla, they have plenty of money for their core product but spend a ton on other projects that I don't care for.

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#202

Post by alberto-m » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:40 PM UTC

randomstate wrote: post #184

guappa wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think signal is already funded by USA taxpayers. Wikipedia has a ton of money and for a few decades doesn't really need any donations.

AFAIK given Wikipedia spending they have ~1.5years of runway. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statisti...

They will have ~1.5 years of runway forever, since the Foundation tries to spend away any money it receives to justify pressing increasingly aggressive fundraisers. The site offers the same service as 15 years ago while ingesting 10x more money, none of which goes to the content producers.

More info here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#203

Post by x_may » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:41 PM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #193

The only software project I donate to is NVDA[1]. It's an open source screen reader, AKA software that makes it possible for the blind to use computers through synthesized speech. It's one of the few open source projects (besides Blender and GIMP) that is used directly by non-technical end-users and that has managed to surpass its commercial brethren , both in features and popularity. This is partly due to its extrem…

Unfortunate name collision on that one

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#204

Post by n2h4 » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:42 PM UTC

wrasee wrote: post #174

newscracker wrote: post #48

Below I’m listing some of the projects I donate to: DownThemAll , a browser extension that makes multiple simultaneous downloads from a page easy: https://www.downthemall.org/howto/donate/ Free Software Foundation (FSF) : https://www.fsf.org/about/ways-to-donate LibreOffice : https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/ Mozilla Thunderbird : https://give.thunderbird.net/ Soundswitch (Windows application to switch default play…

I, personally, would find it hard to donate to Mozilla knowing the CEO is paid $6 million a year. Compared to the size of the firm that’s a huge amount of pay. At this point I plan to donate to Ladybird instead. Excited for that project.

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#205

Post by jnsaff2 » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:45 PM UTC

Exercism and Sonic-Pi.

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#206

Post by lolinder » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:46 PM UTC

jll29 wrote: post #167

Important institutions that one may want to consider include: Open Source and Internet - Internet Archive [important would be some pro bono legal help due to the recent turn of events, perhaps] - Wikipedia [no need at the moment? Some say "overfunded compared to others"; has anyone checked?] - Ladybird Web browser [coming to you in 2026: the first non-corporate Web browser from scratch; some said it couldn't be done;…

> Internet Archive [important would be some pro bono legal help due to the recent turn of events, perhaps]

I have a really hard time with this one. Their current legal situation didn't just happen to them: they made an intentional choice to do something which ~everyone who knew anything about law warned them would be catastrophic and are now facing the catastrophe that they were warned about. They acted like a small activist group with nothing to lose rather than the essential piece of infrastructure that they have become.

I appreciate that the Internet Archive only exists because it took legal risks back in the day and those risks paid off. But from a strategic perspective you really have to stop being an activist organization once you've won enough ground that being ground to a pulp by the establishment would be a catastrophic loss for humanity. At that point it's time to let the little guys with nothing to lose take the mantle and just focus on preserving the ground that you've won.

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#207

Post by s_dev » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:46 PM UTC

raydenvm wrote: post #7

I live in Ukraine. So I donate to lots of funds like United24 and Come Back Alive Foundation. I believe it helps stop the war and the aggressor. Thousands die every day...

https://www.saintjavelin.com

I bought a hoody with a Tryzub on it. Hoping to buy more stuff soon.

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#208

Post by xandrius » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:46 PM UTC

guappa wrote: post #112

ashton314 wrote: post #35

- Signal - Wikipedia - MyNoise.net - various Emacs package maintainers - Internet Archive If you’ve never seen https://mynoise.net you should check it out. It’s a beautiful collection of exceptionally high-quality recordings that you can tune to create the perfect soundscape for whatever your mood moves you to.

I think signal is already funded by USA taxpayers. Wikipedia has a ton of money and for a few decades doesn't really need any donations.

Is the goal of this thread to judge other people's donation choices?

Re: Ask HN: What projects do you donate to?

#209

Post by piyuv » Tue, May 27, 2025, 12:50 PM UTC

htk wrote: post #201

I used to donate to wikipedia, but after seeing how wikimedia spends the money I stopped. Just like Mozilla, they have plenty of money for their core product but spend a ton on other projects that I don't care for.

Can you share links to what put you off?