The Economics of Open Source Donations

“Donations play a crucial role in supporting Free and Open
Source Software projects. At times readers will write in to share
their positive experience with a utility or program or a
distribution that I have written about. Now don’t confuse them with
your average technical-bent-of-mind Linux user. These are
accountants, home-office businessman, and even carpenters and
plumbers, who’ve saved a lot of money thanks to open source
software. And they have one question in mind–how do I help the
person behind the program?

“I generally recommend everyone to find the project’s forum
boards, or IRC channel, or mailing list and try and help other new
users. Some do, and eventually even graduate to write
documentation, like simple installation steps or how to install
dependencies, in forum board posts…”

Complete Story