Stop donating to "foundations", donate directly to developers if you want to help open source 📦

93    07 Aug 2020 04:37 by u/wise_wolf

14 comments

17 u/None 07 Aug 2020 07:53
Seeing that annoying "woman"'s Code of Conduct on open source projects makes me want to avoid them like the plague.
7 u/RidingMyKeyboard 07 Aug 2020 14:15
I was looking at a repository for an Open Source ventilator this morning; so I browsed the issues to see if there was anything I could tick off this afternoon as I have a spare few hours. The first issue I saw was someone requesting a *Code of Conduct*. Something that contributes absolutely zero to the project, suggested by someone who contributes absolutely zero to the FOSS community, on a project which is actually quite admirable and should really be placed above people's petty identity bullshit. I wouldn't mind if this person held those beliefs and felt entitled to make the suggestion based upon their own involvement with the project, but he's yet another serial abuser of the PR system - just finding projects to copy/paste a Markdown file in to.
13 u/wagesj45 07 Aug 2020 06:07
Good points. A lot of open source projects are just passionate programmers working on projects that they themselves find useful. Donating directly to projects that you find helpful is a huge boost.
8 u/TitanicaTS 07 Aug 2020 06:20
Same thing for charities. In the Clinton Foundation - wasn't it something like 3% went to "actual charity"? Don't trust groups of people you have no idea their philosophies or histories thereof.
8 u/None 07 Aug 2020 08:12
I worked for some of these. yes they take your money as if it was income to pay themselves and use a little bit for the rest. yes its a scam. all big non profits are making you believe you give to a good cause while you just give to the man. of course same for wikipedia, they have millions that they must use yearly yet they have these huge "omg donate or we die" ads. in the meantime the editors work for free, but the nonprofit employees do not and get 500k to millions depending in the job.
5 u/SkyGuy65 07 Aug 2020 12:27
Same with source data or research material. If you want to donate, give to the author. Authors generally do not see a dime of anything donated to the publisher.
3 u/None 07 Aug 2020 07:38
[EFF](https://www.eff.org) may be an exception to this, they are doing great work in the field of privacy and security.
9 u/None 07 Aug 2020 08:14
like what? they just get less donations honestly. its been a long fu5xking time since they did anything useful... all their speakers talk about diversity and antiwhitemale shit now. and yes i actually listened to their speakers in person.
3 u/None 07 Aug 2020 20:01
> its been a long fu5xking time since they did anything useful... Oh you mean like **today**? Funny you're talking shit about EFF being useless while [this](https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/05/crocodile-hunter-4g-stingray-cell/) is currently on the front page. They're doing the [Ring database](https://www.zdnet.com/article/effs-new-database-shows-you-what-tech-local-police-are-using-to-spy-on-you/). They were the first backer of Let's Encrypt (and are the creators and maintainers of certbot). [They are really active, actually](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/electronic-frontier-foundation/company_overview/overview_timeline)
2 u/None 08 Aug 2020 06:06
mozilla paid for and made letsencrypt. the rest is just people who joined on for fame. cerbot is a shit piece of software btw, there are much better alternatives that people do for free in their spare time.
1 u/CaptainPenguin 21 Aug 2020 02:37
I donate to the EFF for their legal defense and lobbying efforts related to digital rights. Not because they make a couple of browser extensions. I don't like the woke-ass bullshit, but its everywhere. The entire tech industry is infected with it. The people that disagree with that BS roll their eyes and keep their mouths shut. If that weren't the case there would be more cases like James Damore when someone pushes back against woke HR. I haven't heard anything anti-male or anti-white from EFF, but I've admittedly not seen their speakers at any tech conference. Not saying I don't believe you, but I think if it were something truly egregious it would have been publicized signalling to the unwoke crowd to stop donating to this sexist/racist organization. If its the kind of woke-ass shit we hear from HR all the time, we're probably already desensitized to it. Just because an org. has a crazy blue-haired wokester presenting a talk, doesn't make it representative of that organizations culture as a whole. There are absolutely pockets of crazy people in tech that are louder than all the reasonable voices.
1 u/None 21 Aug 2020 07:49
https://www.fastcompany.com/90345870/most-creative-people-2019-electronic-frontier-foundation-eva-galperin
1 u/CaptainPenguin 21 Aug 2020 14:53
I read through it, and there isn't anything inherently damning of her character. I'm not seeing whatever you're seeing.
1 u/None 21 Aug 2020 15:05
its just that person, the text indicates shes a director ie not a nobody. nothing damning on the site.