on 5/5/2011 1:55 PM Dave Stevens spake the following:
> Hello All,
>
> I want to ask about CentOS and money. Please do not start some kind of
> shitstorm over this, it isn't productive.
>
> I have just been looking at archive.org to see when the paypal option went
> missing from the donate menu at centos.org. I can't pin it down, but it was
> there on October 16, 2010 and isn't now, so that's the information I have on
> that point.
>
> There was a great deal of argy-bargy on this list when the 5.6 update was slow
> arriving. I don't want to go there, I was happy to see it when it arrived, as
> I always am when there's an update.
>
> The impression I got was that the maintainers and packagers were working as
> hard as they could and were tetchy about being nagged, being unable to do
> more. Fair enough, but we need not adopt the status quo entirely.
>
> The donate menu on the web site has this to say, (and more) ...
>
> "The CentOS team would like to remind you that the primary means of
> substaining the development of CentOS is via contributions by CentOS users.
>
> CentOS is now, and will continue to be totally free; however, it takes money
> and resources to make CentOS available.
>
> If you are able, please consider donating to the CentOS Project. Donations of
> promo material, public mirrors and dedicated servers are all vital to our
> contined operations.
>
> Monetary
>
> CentOS is currently reviewing our cash donation program. In the mean time we
> are not accepting any financial donations. We do appreciate though, if you
> want to - for example - help out with promo material. See our Wiki page on
> donations for more up to date information."
>
> So referring as directed to the wiki page shows:
>
> "Resource and financial needs
>
> The CentOS Project is entirely based on the efforts of volunteers. We rely on
> contributions and donations from CentOS users as well, for:
>
> * Logistics related to promotion and infrastructure
> * Specific hardware needs
> * Bandwidth and connectivity
> * Promotion material at conferences and exhibitions
> * Organizing CentOS-related events "
>
> I don't see anything there about money except in the first line and I'm really
> curious why. Internally it is clear that if the team hasn't put in place some
> cash donation basis probably the capacity isn't there. But the current team
> need not go into areas where they have no time or (perhaps) expertise. There
> are lots of capable money folks in the free software world who can and do
> accept donations and deal with administrative infrastructure and channel
> support to projects. So the name apache-friends is suggestive. Without
> necessarily using that model I wonder why there isn't a CentOS Friends group
> or fund to which I and others can donate. I can't help but believe that if
> there were, say, a couple of paid staff with CentOS as the day job, things
> would not be so burdensome to the devs we have now and maybe we could build on
> that.
>
> For my part, I installed CentOS on some machines I administer for non-profit
> groups in Canada. The lack of licencing fees makes a big difference to them,
> non-profits groups are perpetuually long on brains and short on cash. But even
> so I think we could cough up, say, ten bucks a year per machine to put some
> payback into CentOS. Given general widespread goodwill this might be
> multiplied significantly.
>
> I have not seen this discussed on the list and would be happy to know if there
> is some reason it hasn't been attempted.
>
> Please let me repeat, this is meant as a constructive suggestion, there is no
> problem with the product, quite the reverse.
>
> Comments?
>
> Dave
>
>
>
>
Here is a bit of why the donation button went away (It was back in 2009 or so)...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10300222-92.html
http://www.osnews.com/comments/21921
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