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by mason55 4148 days ago
> How would a free software project 'pay it forward'?

As mentioned by the grandparent comment, GPG is in use by Debian, Ubuntu and RedHat package managers. Whether or not you count those three as free software they have plenty of money to pay forward to a piece of software that underpins their entire stacks.
2 comments
stolio 4148 days ago
Unless I've missed something big in the past 2 years even the Debian Project Leader is still a volunteer[0]. If most/all money's going to operating costs it's hard to make the case they're holding out on somebody. They also have a record of treating their upstream quite well so I'd need some evidence to believe they're dropping the ball.

[0] - https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2013/03/msg00095.html

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hf 4148 days ago
The point isn't easily settled, it seems:

I am having a hard time to find financial statements from Debian.

Ubuntu, or rather Canonical, being a private company, doesn't seem to release financial information. The Ubuntu main page doesn't even provide a 'donate' link anymore.

Which leaves RedHat, at last. A public company, of course[0]:

   Operating profit 2014: $ 1.3e9
   Net total income 2014: $ 178.3e6
[0] http://investors.redhat.com/financials-statements.cfm
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dfc 4148 days ago
Software in Public Interest handles debian's donations. The latest treasurer report from SPI can be found here: http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-general/2014-November...

For some reason SPI has not put out an annual report since 2012: http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/annual-reports/2012.pdf

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vacri 4148 days ago
This article claims that $222k was the budget for 2012 for Debian, down at the bottom. It also claims the budget should be $19B, if paid at market rates.

http://www.pc-freak.net/blog/what-is-the-development-costs-o...

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tokenizerrr 4148 days ago
> The Ubuntu main page doesn't even provide a 'donate' link anymore

Try to download it: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=1...

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Alupis 4148 days ago
Here's Canonical's 2013 numbers:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/199373896/Canonical-Group-Limited-...

21 million USD negative, largely due to Ubuntu development and related expenses.

Canonical has never been profitable, which is why Shuttleworth constantly re-invests his own personal capital in the company.

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