Hi Maria,
Maria Morisot wrote on Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 03:10:46PM +0600:
> I see there are two types of donation receivers, the project and the
> foundation. What is the difference between how the money is spent
> between the two.
How the money is *spent* is not not the main difference between
the two. Well, strictly speaking, since the Foundation needs to
have Bylaws and yada yada yada, there are a few formal restriction
on how Foundation money can be spent, but as for any foundation,
this Foundation is designed in such a way that such minor formal
restrictions do not cause any significant trouble in practice.
So people who want to donate need not worry about the differences
in *spending*. From a practical point of view, the difference between
the two is entirely about needs of the *donator*.
> The foundation from what it looks like goes to paying the bills
> for the infrastructure, how about donations to the project.
>
> I've already many times over stated my willingness to donate time;
You cannot really donate time to OpenBSD, in the way you would sell
your working time to an employer, giving the time to the employer
and the employer then telling you what to do. Managing employees
requires the *employer* to do some work of their own, for example
directing the employees what to do and making sure they don't
suffer harm while working. The OpenBSD project is not prepared
to do any such employer's work.
What you can do is donate *products* of your work, like you would sell
products while working in a self-employed manner, except that you have
neither customers nor revenue. The most common and most welcome way of
doing that is by submitting patches. There is a fine legal distinction
related to that: with OpenBSD, in contrast to some other free software
projects, you do not actually donate your submitted patches to OpenBSD
like you would, for example, have to donate them to the FSF when
contributing code to the GNU project, by transfering your (economic
part of your) Copyright to the FSF. Instead, you merely publish your
patches under a free license, retaining all your Copyright yourself,
and OpenBSD is then free to include and redistribute your work.
There is also a merely terminological distinction: we do not call
submissions of patches "donations."
> I am also an artist and a poet. Perhaps I could work on an OpenBSD
> related poetry chapbook. I remember you used to have songs for
> every release.
Commission of art and poetry for the OpenBSD project works by
invitation only, and i don't know how or on which grounds such
invitations are decided. The process certainly isn't public.
It never mattered to me because i'm neither an artist nor a poet. :)
> I want to donate money but I just want to see where it goes
> so I can tailor my choice of which.
The advice is extremely simple:
If you can, donate directly to the OpenBSD project because that means
1. the donation can be used for any purpose, including all purposes
that can be funded by the foundation and some that can't
2. it causes less overhead, less paperwork, less bookkeeping effort,
hence fewer distractions of developers from actual development
Use the Foundation only if *you* have a specific reason why your
specific donation can only be made through the Foundation and not
directly. If you don't know, then it seems to me you have no specific
reason, so donating directly is better.
Yours,
Ingo
