[samueloph]

Debian can't really directly pay contributors (there are some rare few cases like lawyers, etc....), so that would be one of the reasons for what the article is talking about.

The best thing someone could do in this scenario would to be hire someone to work on/improve Debian directly.

[shiroiuma]

But what improvement does Debian really need, beyond the capabilities it already has?

Linux in general could use various improvements, if some billionaire decided to fund people to work on it. But I don't really see how any distro could use the lion's share of that funding. Instead, much of it probably needs to go to infrastructure things like drivers, Wayland, etc., so that Linux works better on people's computers. Other things that could use development funding are various applications. But these are things that all distros share.

[humanrebar]

Someone could form a nonprofit org that funds packaging work in Debian. Or maybe even a for-profit one. I'm pretty sure a lot of big consumers would rather pay for expertise instead of having an in-house Debian "upstream" team.

[Karellen]

https://www.debian.org/donations

> The easiest method of donating to Debian is via PayPal to Software in the Public Interest, a non-profit organization that holds assets in trust for Debian.

https://www.spi-inc.org/

> Software in the Public Interest (SPI) is a non-profit corporation registered in the state of New York founded to act as a fiscal sponsor for organizations that develop open source software and hardware. Our mission is to help substantial and significant open source projects

Edit: But also, freexian

https://www.freexian.com/lts/debian/

> To achieve the 5 years of support, and properly cover all Debian packages, Freexian organizes a corporate sponsorship campaign with the goal of funding the work of multiple Debian contributors who are established as independent workers.

> If you are not yet convinced, here are seven reasons why you should help fund the Debian Long Term Support initiative (LTS):