Hello fellow nixers,
Here's an interesting question:

If you had an empty check where you could write any amount, to which software project would you send it to.

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So what do you think nixers, where would you send your unlimited money check to?

I think this could be a bit of a loaded question, because maybe the lower you go or depending on what you target the implications are super big (eg IDK, fund clasp, or some alternative C compiler or OS dev work -- the idea being that given enough time and interest if money is no object then eventually they would find technical success in some respect).

but! I would probably just give a bunch of money to the qutebrowser dev, The-Compiler. Mostly I'm a fan of the verbose communication style he runs the project with -- I feel like the path from issue to current status or where to start on dev is fairly clear, even on things that are years old at this point.

Maybe the same could be said of the doom-emacs author, hlissner. I'm not a doom emacs user but the doom base seems nice and I'll snipe stuff from time to time. The few times I've reached out it's resulted in near instant changes to the doom emacs core.

Maybe some money to the wlroots devs.

Maybe FSF if I felt it would come back to emacs in some way.

hm... I guess maybe most projects I'd write a blank check to have a bus factor of ~1, and is stuff I use or have an interest in using in the future.

I would send it to apple, microsoft, nvidia, ibm, and all those making money out of closed source software with this note:

Quote:Now you have the money. Release the source.

I'd split it.

1) NetBSD. Although I don't use it, I know that they desperately need money and they have quite a few neat ideas in their code.
2) illumos. I know that they desperately need developers, and developers love money.
3) Jörg Schilling. To piss off Debian. (Actually, no: To encourage him to not stop developing the awesome schily tools before he ceases to exit.)

All other projects which would be worth any amount to me - including (but not limited to) plan9port and several others - don't need my funding in the foreseeable future.

(08-06-2020, 06:40 PM)z3bra Wrote: I would send it to apple, microsoft, nvidia, ibm, and all those making money out of closed source software with this note:

Quote:Now you have the money. Release the source.

hahaha paying the ransom before they even write a note?

Sending it to hardware manufacturers to get out of their bondage with Microsoft could be a good idea. More free software drivers and less spyware would make purchasing new hardware easer (and hopefully cheaper).

(08-06-2020, 05:30 PM)neeasade Wrote: Maybe FSF if I felt it would come back to emacs in some way.

I was thinking about the same thing.

When it comes to Emacs development, the FSF is a problem, not the solution. There are reasons why many people have stopped trying to contribute to GNU Emacs. The copyright assignment sucks.

- Dylan Araps
- 2f30
- 9front
- Suckless
- Sourcehut

These people make cool stuff and I'm sure none of them are millionares so...

Oh I totally forgot, Newpipe is a lifesaver and I would definitely give them some of the money.

OpenBSD. I would love to have a true Unix led by the right people that can do all the things Linux can

(10-06-2020, 10:44 PM)evbo Wrote: OpenBSD. I would love to have a true Unix led by the right people that can do all the things Linux can

that's definitely not what the openbsd team wants

If it were a blank check situation, I'd do some thorough research that I haven't done yet. (duh)

I would start out by trying to pinpoint which software team is underrepresented and providing the greatest value to the world, which is not quite something you can throw a search engine and find answers for.

More realistically, it would probably be scoped to my personal involvement within the FOSS community at the time: who I've interacted with, received help from, involved with bringing support to hardware I own, etc.

(09-06-2020, 10:23 AM)sokx Wrote: - Dylan Araps

I 100% agree! He makes some awesome stuff and has been a great inspiration to me. I'm sure thousands of people use his software every day without really knowing who he his, really a shame.

(11-06-2020, 02:07 PM)gmk Wrote: Dylan Araps

I hadn't heard his name before but a quick search led to me the KISS website. Interesting stuff, thanks! I may have to pull an unused machine out of the boneyard to experiment with this system.

(I already compile as much as I can against musl libc, so for me it's a plus that KISS uses it too. All in all, and at first glance, I'm very much in favor of the approach Dylan seems to be taking.)

Maybe WebKitGTK. They provide the only library that you can use in a reasonable way to build your own browser. But it has so many bugs and performance issues, it’s sad. As soon as they catch up, some new fancy web standard emerges and they quickly fall behind again.

(But to be honest, I’d rather send the money to some hypothetical hardware manufacturer and tell them to make us some sane CPUs and mainboards. :-) Well documented, free software, no out-of-order, no hidden software, …)

I would give it to meeee! So that I can be myself the one who work on open source projects. :)

I would call it the OnlyMeee foundation.

What about giving SEL4 a boost while we are at it? I would be curious to see what would the scene would look like.

There is also a good cleanup to give to GPG: drop old crypto, add MLS (https://messaginglayersecurity.rocks/) to it.

Then let's do a tour of Autocrypt (https://autocrypt.org/) for all client, including outlook, apple mail and whatnot.

I would not give a penny to Jitsi and give a hand at the guys at https://ag-projects.com/.

We definitely need a simple SIP router that JustWorks and support just the minimal features, so that would get done as well, because Kamailio or OpenSIPS are not exactly simple to get spin up.

Then we have a good ground to give Autocrypt video call abilities: use the crypto from autocrypt to bootstrap video call and tada: you have 50% of the planet able to place free end-to-end encrypted (ZRTP?) phone calls to each other through open infrastructure (no need for a server doing the book keeping of identities). (zen of Chat Over Imap https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/coi/).

That would definitely be helped up by some funds.

On the hardware world, let's have a look at https://maemo-leste.github.io/. Drivers drivers drivers ! And integration of a lot of other components... Work done for that devuan-based distribution would be used for everything else.

Now that I only spent 1% of infinity, we can get real and attack the industry where billing each other company should not mean hiding the source code you sell in the meantime.

This is something not as fun as building an open source social network as a hobby, so I doubt many people are interested into pushing the software that controls the production lines robots toward more open sourcedness, but I might be surprised, because I know very little of this world.

That was definitely a fun question to ask around. :)

(14-06-2020, 09:17 AM)vain Wrote: WebKitGTK

That sounds like the big battle out there: Web Browsers. There are definitely big funds put by big companies to develop these titanic (hue hue) projects.

(09-06-2020, 10:23 AM)sokx Wrote: - Dylan Araps
- 2f30
- 9front
- Suckless
- Sourcehut

These people make cool stuff and I'm sure none of them are millionares so...

There are definitely small projects that could make a big use of even small funds. Cat-v guys are working all of their time on bringing plan 9 to more platforms and have a large list of WIP (actively!) projects, like video decoding that it still lacks.

(14-06-2020, 06:46 PM)josuah Wrote:

(14-06-2020, 09:17 AM)vain Wrote: WebKitGTK

That sounds like the big battle out there: Web Browsers. There are definitely big funds put by big companies to develop these titanic (hue hue) projects.

I'm coming around to the opinion that the html-based web is a lost cause and it's time to consider alternatives. Perhaps the gopher community could use some of the funding being discussed here?

(09-06-2020, 09:55 AM)jkl Wrote: When it comes to Emacs development, the FSF is a problem, not the solution. There are reasons why many people have stopped trying to contribute to GNU Emacs. The copyright assignment sucks.

If giving them money could mean hiring a team to fix long standing problems such as concurrency and updating the display engine, then it would be worth it. Also, while acquiring the copyright assignment is trivial, there have reverently been discussion about dropping it, fyi.

With a majority of members denying the request IIRC.

What would gopher communities do with these funds though ?

Gopher is only a protocol, just like HTTP. If the world were to adopt gopher, big browsers and companies would simply keep serving HTML-based website, just over the gopher protocol. Gopher already has support for fetching HTML anyway, and thanks to Gopher+ / CGI support, Javascript could be used just fine. I highly doubt any company would switch from HTML to Gophermaps…

The whole web is doomed already, it just happens that /for now/ it is transported over HTTP(S). Swapping protocols won't change the content at all.

- NetBSD
- OpenBSD
- 9front
- Suckless
- Some ppl here at Nixers.net

https://www.landley.net/toybox/ - toysh r us
http://www.serenityos.org/ - we need a new browser, not just another electron chrome reskin. a new OS is cool too.

If you need a new browser, I’d recommend funding the NetSurf project.

Something from the serenityos website that really resonated with me:

Quote:I was in a place where I needed to do some programming to find myself again.

Too long in exile,
blowing the dust off my C compiler.
I've only been using it to build other people's stuff
and need to get back to making some of my own.

... which brings me to my question related to this thread's topic:

I don't want to put my code on GitHub, because I don't like or trust MSFT's involvement.
(I used to work there, remember.)
But I also don't want the bother of setting up my own website or git server.
What GitHub alternatives, if any, do you guys recommend (and could they use some money)?

(03-07-2020, 07:13 PM)ckester Wrote: What GitHub alternatives, if any, do you guys recommend (and could they use some money)?

Well one popular alternative is sourcehut (at least in our circles), and it's totally free software (AGPL), so they'd always appreciate funding. Or maybe something like Gitea, but I'm not quite sure what their financial situation is.

Darcshub needs more funding.

Considering that all would be accepting money.
- Myself : )
- NetBSD
- OpenBSD
- 9front
- Skarnet
- Arcan (Display Server)
- C Compilers Alternatives (cproc, scc, etc.)
And maybe a lot of random small projects.