I've said this before, but kudos to the OpenBSD Project for shouldering a disproportionate share of the burden of maintaining core bits of our libre/open infrastructure. I can't think of anyone in tech who has not benefited mightily from OpenSSH and who will not benefit mightily from LibreSSL.
This article is a good reminder for me to get off my arse and cut my meager grad-student checks to the EFF and OpenBSD project.
What spindritf said. OpenBSD has an extraordinarily high impact-to-X ratio, for many values of X (funding, notoriety, number of contributors, unnecessary problematization, glamor, etc.).
Even though I'm more likely to use OS X or Linux these days than OpenBSD, OpenBSD would fare better in the absence of most Linux distros, than most Linux distros would fare without OpenBSD.
Well, they take on responsibility as stewards, which means they will be the target of criticisms and backdoor attempts, and will need to meet the demands of downstream demand for fixes, requests and help. They also need to (have already) spend time on understanding the code, development and integration. They need to communicate the problems with OpenSSL and what they've done to other people within the ecosystem.
A lot of the work they do on their packages and in base stuff is pushed upstream to properly support security features OpenBSD supports. Everyone benefits from this because then such features can be enabled everywhere with less pain.
if you can get five people to buy CDs, and maybe two of them get another two or three to buy CDs, you'll have done much more good for the project than cutting a check.
How so? I don't have a computer with optical media anymore, and am most likely to install OpenBSD via network. Is there something about CD sales in particular that helps the project more than a straight up check? I'm happy to cut the check directly to the project even though that isn't tax deductible (though I think there's a foundation that is--though they're restricted on how they can spend those funds).
I agree that the CDs are becoming an anachronism, but they still provide an easy way to contribute to the project. Buy the CD, throw it away if you don't need it.
This sort of culture needs to be weeded out. We are perfectly able to create enough waste as it is, there should be no need to advocate this sort of mentality any further. Either donate directly or don't.
Slackware: I donated the cost of the DVDs plus postage. Seemed silly to shift atoms across an ocean when the bits can trickle down the phone line from a mirror server about 60 miles away.
Are there any strange tax or accounting advantages for the organisation I'm supporting if I buy actual stuff rather than donating?
I don't know about Canadian tax law, but in the US there is no benefit to earned revenue over contributed revenue, and often having a high number of individual donors can be advantageous for granting reasons.
I've seen some strange things related to exports (primarily because the law seems to be moving at a glacial speed compared to reality). So, e.g. a product exported to another country may be exempt from local VAT (so you can "zero rate" it, hence the checkbox that sometimes appears on order pages). This gets a bit blurry when it comes to digital software sales - is it a product you are shipping to another country? Or is it a service you are rendering in your own country (and thus, not exempt from VAT)?
Not necessarily better but perhaps easier. For example your employer may not have an issue with an expense charge for software CDs but might have a problem with a paypal payment to "deraadt"
Nah, it's better to use donations to support the project. CDs are kinda lost technology these days.
ps. Donations by users are kinda hard to help (in term of numbers) but donations from companies, should be really waaaaaay more towards all BSD project but ESPECIALLY towards OpenBSD for reasons already mentioned.
This article is a good reminder for me to get off my arse and cut my meager grad-student checks to the EFF and OpenBSD project.