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DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

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Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#161

Post by pjmlp »

esaym wrote: post #21

Craigslist used to donate over $100,000 every single year. Not sure when that stopped. That is really what kept perl going between the years of 2010 and 2016 or so. The board was actually paying a couple of people to do maintenance on the core repository and code. I believe they still do that but obviously due to deficits that is going to get difficult. It's sad when so many companies are dependent upon perl, but don…

I am fully with you, although in AT&T's case they already offered UNIX, Plan 9, Inferno, C and C++ to the world, so maybe that excuses them at the FOSS crowd eyes?

Lets forget about that lawsuit, and trying to take a certain book out of print. /s

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#162

Post by pjmlp »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #89
whiplash451 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd find a lot of talented C++ engineers for the right mission and culture. The problem you describe has little to do with C++ and a lot to do with banking.

I am not sure you understand the problem. Your first sentence hints that you know that there needs to be other things than tech stack and salary to find talented C++ programmers. But the second sentence pretends like you didn't write the first sentence. I said tech stack affects hiring more than salary. I didn't say there is a lack of C++ programmers. I was very explicit about my statement.

Have done consulting with banks as customers, I definitly wouldn't want to work for one, regardless of the tech stack, and money being offered.

This is what OP was hinting at.

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#163

Post by pjmlp »

IshKebab wrote: post #135
philistine wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess with C++ you either work for a bank or you do video games. Guess which one people prefer?

Definitely banks! Much better pay (at least in investment banks) and way less stressful.

Better pay sure, less stressful, not the ones I had as customers.

And you better like to come in a proper suit to work, and talk to your work colleges in formal language, regardless of how many years you happen to have worked together.

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#164

Post by pjmlp »

nu11ptr wrote: post #68
sneak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gifts don’t require repayment. Releasing free software is a gift to the world. Corporations don’t owe free software maintainers a cent, because people using your software doesn’t cost you anything.

100%. This new trend of maintaining or starting an open source project and then getting upset when people don't send you money is seriously weird. If you want compensation, start a company, otherwise consider anything you receive a gift.

The problem, for some, is that they believed the dream it is possible to make a living out of free software.

They forgot to read the footnote on how it actually works in capitalist and money driven societies.

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#165

Post by pjmlp »

rglullis wrote: post #46
dweekly wrote: post #6

A: This is great! Perl is much maligned but a fantastic Swiss army chainsaw and still runs so much critical infrastructure. B: I find it concerning that $25k is a notable donation; is the Foundation doing that poorly? I would have hoped this number to have two more digits in it for it to be a front page worthy item.

It is mind boggling how much funding there would be for the Gimp/Krita/Inkscape/Penpot developers if every designer gave them 5% of what they give to Adobe.

Same applies to most open source tools, that many devs use while expecting themselves to be paid.

I usually buy books from most projects I use, do occasional donations to projects when they are relevant enough for my work,...

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#166

Post by whiplash451 »

dweekly wrote: post #6

A: This is great! Perl is much maligned but a fantastic Swiss army chainsaw and still runs so much critical infrastructure. B: I find it concerning that $25k is a notable donation; is the Foundation doing that poorly? I would have hoped this number to have two more digits in it for it to be a front page worthy item.

Given the number of private companies that rely on Perl, $25K is in the ballpark of what _each_ of these companies should contribute to the Perl community.

DDG is not responsible for the greed of companies that contribute zero.

I applaude DDG's decision. Their move is pragmatic and a lot more inspiring to the companies out there than day-dreaming of a single company donating 7- or 8-digit to the Perl community (which, frankly, would not be sane either).

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#167

Post by whiplash451 »

rglullis wrote: post #46
dweekly wrote: post #6

A: This is great! Perl is much maligned but a fantastic Swiss army chainsaw and still runs so much critical infrastructure. B: I find it concerning that $25k is a notable donation; is the Foundation doing that poorly? I would have hoped this number to have two more digits in it for it to be a front page worthy item.

It is mind boggling how much funding there would be for the Gimp/Krita/Inkscape/Penpot developers if every designer gave them 5% of what they give to Adobe.

Indeed. What concerns me is that with the current AI trends, the amount of funding that the Adobes of the world will put into AI for their products will only widen the gap between OSS and proprietary solutions.

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#168

Post by whiplash451 »

cardanome wrote: post #125
rglullis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mind boggling how much funding there would be for the Gimp/Krita/Inkscape/Penpot developers if every designer gave them 5% of what they give to Adobe.

They kind of suck at asking for donations. Look at Wikipedia. They are grossly OVER-funded, they have more money they could ever need in fact And they run purely on donations. I always wanted to donate for Firefox but they don't offer me an option to do so. Or look at Gimp: https://www.gimp.org/donating/ Not clear call to action. Lot's of confusion options. Not the best marketing.

You are welcome to propose more efficient ways of funding OSS.

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#169

Post by robertlagrant »

leejo wrote: post #159
robertlagrant wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People and companies just don't talk about it. Why not?

> Why not? I don't know. I could speculate: * The Perl they have is so low maintenance they don't think about it much * Or they're planning to rewrite it but haven't yet got around to it... after more than a decade? * They have nobody working on it that is vocal about it or active in the community/blogsphere/etc * The company policy is to not talk about it * Or talk about any tech they use - think: banks, large enter…

I think that all makes sense. I would perhaps as an outside observer also lay the blame at Perl's feet - with Perl 6 the momentum seemed to crash completely over a decade or so.

Re: DuckDuckGo donates $25k to the Perl and Raku Foundation

#170

Post by rglullis »

whiplash451 wrote: post #167
rglullis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mind boggling how much funding there would be for the Gimp/Krita/Inkscape/Penpot developers if every designer gave them 5% of what they give to Adobe.

Indeed. What concerns me is that with the current AI trends, the amount of funding that the Adobes of the world will put into AI for their products will only widen the gap between OSS and proprietary solutions.

I see it as an opportunity. "Libre" models are already matching state-of-the-art models, so it's not like this power will not be available to the OSS developers.
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