Acknowledging Great Free Software

banuaba writes: "I am a Windows user. I've tried a couple of distros of Linux, and a BSD or two, but they aren't what I need in an OS. Sometimes in my job and my personal 'life' I need something with a little more power than Windows can give me, and when that time comes, I use Cygwin and have been wholly satisfied and enamored with the product they put out. My question for all you Slashdotters out there is this: I would like to 'reward' the Cygwin people for giving me a great product that fits my needs, but aside from an 'attaboy' email, I don't see how I could compensate them, preferrably financially. I don't have any coding skills of significance, and am not inclined to learn, I'd just like a way to let them know that I like what they've done. In the non-free (as in beer) software world, I would buy their next release. Is there any way to financially help them along? Should I just mail them a check? Would that be insulting to OSS developers, as a general rule? How or would you slashdotters who work on GPL'd code like to be compensated for your time and effort?"

The GNU Project maintains the Cygwin documentation; they have a whole page of ways you can help their efforts to spread Free software, which includes sending money, but quite a few other things, too.

I like Alan Cox's system of CD donations, but I've not met any developers yet who would be offended by a donation in money, bug-fixes, hardware, or positive word of mouth. Does anyone have interesting suggestions for thanking Free software developers?

Bawls would be better.

[Adambomb]

Imagine the benefits if we rewarded outstanding software with a few cases of Bawls. We'd then have content caffeinated coders ready to twitch up another product, heh.

Oh, and ..

[SirSlud]

Yeah, probably the biggest value to an open source developer is seeing their product overtake a competeting commercial product in terms of market use. So, outside of sending money, anything you can do to increase use of the product (maybe you have access to some decent web real estate to help advertise?) I'm sure would be much appreciated too. Or, writing documentation. Or, maintaining a web page. Or .. well, the list goes on, but there are a multitude of ways to help open source developers other than contributing code! (Especially since many programmers arn't exactly gifted in the arena of documentation and language.)

GNUPro

[graveyhead]

I know you are running windows, but you could support the Cygnus team by purchasing the GNUPro toolkit [redhat.com]. It offers some really useful stuff (optimized gcc, insight visual debugger, etc). Maybe it will provide the incentive you need to maintain a dual boot. It would certainly reward the developers monitarily (as would purchasing the boxed RedHat). Last one I purchased was $79.00 US. Remember, RedHat and Cygnus are the same entity now, so by supporting one you support the other by proxy.

To Make Donations go Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Cygwin is owned by RedHat, in fact the CEO of Cygwin is now the CTO of RedHat. If you want to support cygwin, then please visit this link: http://www.redhat.com/products/support/cygwin/ You could also buy RHAT which is traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

First the 'attaboy'

[update()]

My question for all you Slashdotters out there is this: I would like to 'reward' the Cygwin people for giving me a great product that fits my needs, but aside from an 'attaboy' email, I don't see how I could compensate them, preferrably financially.

Don't sell the 'attaboy' email short. It's a great motivation to get some feedback beyond "You suck!" and "It doesn't work. Do I need Windows 2000?" For most small-time developers, it's probably more of an inducement to keep working than a $10 check would be. And it costs you othing but time, so be lavish!

Not that anyone would likely be offended by money.

Re:Offended by money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your expectation that people, who tip, actually do this to gain special treatment for their contribution is exactly what offends people, who might not have any other venue of showing appreciation than through tipping.

There are people simple minded enough to approach software programmers without thinking of "buying a brain". If there is a misconception about the value of a developer's work or support between the developer and his users than it is usually because a user, who is not a programmer, has no idea and no possibility to make an informed judgement about the support's or code's worth.

Most of these users go through a learning process and learn to appreciate the work, which is done by open/free software developers. Once that happens nothing but tipping often is available to non technical supporters. The knowledge of the guru's community inate arrogance, displayed freely on many online forums, is what makes tipping then a difficult process.

If I go and tip someone, I usually don't expect that person to think it's anyghing else but a friendly guesture. My experience is that remarkably often people in this community think it might be something else. That's the sad part of it.

speaking of beer

[fishexe]

All these replies about beer reminded me of a couple software packages I've downloaded that were "beer ware": basically if you like the program and use it a lot you are encouraged to send the developer a case of beer. Sounds like a good license to me!