Supporting FreeBSD
Dating back thousands of years, December has been a time of gift-giving. It's a good time for it: By midwinter, it's clear who has surplus from the past year's harvests, and who needs help to get through until spring. December is a good month for charity in modern times, too: In many parts of the world, it's the last opportunity to get a tax receipt for the current tax year.There are many charities and foundations soliciting donations at this time of year, but as a FreeBSD user and developer, the FreeBSD Foundation is the one closest to my heart. Last year I donated the profits made by the Tarsnap online backup service in December to the FreeBSD Foundation, and I am pleased to announce that I will once again donate all of the profits made by Tarsnap in December to the FreeBSD Foundation.
The FreeBSD Foundation plays a very important role in supporting and sponsoring FreeBSD development; while FreeBSD, as an open source project, is mostly developed by volunteers, there are moments when money is vital — buying hardware, obtaining legal advice, paying for developers to travel to conferences, etc. — and many others where it can dramatically speed up development — for instance, in cases where basic infrastructure work is needed but isn't "sexy" enough for anyone to work on it otherwise.
The FreeBSD Foundation launched their end-of-year fundraising campaign last week, and I hope my readers will join me in supporting them — either by making a donation directly, or by signing up for secure backups and increasing the amount I'll be donating. Remember: The more you give, the better FreeBSD will be.