All Tarsnap profits for Dec '09 will be donated to the FreeBSD Foundation

31–32 of 32 posts

Re: All Tarsnap profits for Dec '09 will be donated to the FreeBSD Foundation

#31

Post by antonovka2 » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 6:40 AM UTC

munchhausen wrote: post #29

cperciva wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the GPL, Linux has companies like Red Hat committing 25% of the new code base. Companies have to improve the product, and Linux can evolve without direct funding. There's two routes for money to take: 1. People donate money to the FreeBSD Foundation, which then funds FreeBSD development. 2. People pay for RHEL, and then RedHat uses that money to fund Linux development. Is there really any significant diffe…

There is indeed a significant difference between the two - people paying for RHEL get support in return for their money. BSD benefactors get a good feeling and a word of thanks for their contribution. The difference in the amounts of money received by both institutions shows how much are people willing to pay for the former vs. the latter.

Colin's statement was in the context of the question of BSD vs. GPL licensing.

RedHat's model it's clearly more effective than simple charity, but I don't see a difference between RedHat and any other OSS-reliant contributing vendor. As an example, Juniper funds FreeBSD development based on sales/support of their high-end networking products, and contributed the MIPS port included in FreeBSD 8:

http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/news/article.php/3...

Blue Coat contributed the new L2/L3 SMP-improved rewrite:

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3835746

The main difference is that these companies make their money by incorporating FreeBSD into their products, are not required to provide all the source to their products, and thus can contribute back improvements as they see fit.

Re: All Tarsnap profits for Dec '09 will be donated to the FreeBSD Foundation

#32

Post by cperciva » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 11:05 AM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #22

icey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly taken aback by the poor taste of this comment. There's no such thing as a "partially charitable act", FreeBSD can use the help - Colin shouldn't feel compelled to disclose his company's financials because someone on the internet feels that he somehow deserves that information. I guess if you needed some sort of baseline by which to base your donation (assuming you actually intend to make one instead of j…

I just think it's reasonable to ask how much he plans to have his business donate. And the fact that it is a business making the donation means that it isn't personal information, it's information about the business, so I didn't think his response was a reasonable answer. The reasonable answer is "I'm not telling," not "I'm not telling and it's none of your business because this is a personal charitable contribution,…

the fact that it is a business making the donation means that it isn't personal information, it's information about the business

I didn't notice this bit when I replied earlier. If Tarsnap were a traditional startup company and there were cofounders and investors, I'd agree with you; but Tarsnap isn't that. Rather, Tarsnap is 100% owned by me, and the profits Tarsnap makes -- when I'm not donating them to the FreeBSD Foundation -- are my income.

To me this moves it from "business information" to "personal information": You're basically asking how much money I earn -- and while I know many people are happy to discuss that, the way I was raised makes me treat discussions of someone's income as only slightly less taboo than discussions of their sex life.

Post reply on HN