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Ask HN: FOSS Projects Worth Donating To?

35 points by AndroidKitKat ↗ HN
Hi Hacker News,

I've recently come into a bit of excess money and I feel like giving back to some FOSS people.

I'd like to make my money go to people who don't already get a bunch of other donations (not to say those people aren't worthy!). Any ideas?

40 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 82.2 ms ] thread
LinuxBender
Ampache has been around for over 15 years but they are always improving. When it first started at a college I donated beer but they also accept money. [1] I think they would prefer contributions in the form of software development. [2]

Ampache is A web based audio/video streaming application and file manager. Allowing you to access your music & videos from anywhere, using almost any internet enabled device.

[1] - https://ampache.org/donate.html

[2] - https://github.com/ampache/ampache

fathyb
I support those, and I believe they deserve more:

- SerenityOS [0], they do get some donations, but nothing close to the Linux Foundation, Wikipedia, or Mozilla.

- MikroORM [1] if you'd like to support an ORM for TypeScript in the backend, again some donations, but nothing close to SerenityOS!

[0]: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity

[1]: https://github.com/mikro-orm/mikro-orm

mhio
Out of interest, What drew you to MikroORM and beyond that, to support it? Say over Prisma or TypeORM as the big alternates.
fathyb
I used TypeORM and ended up regretting it because of bugs and regressions. I felt that it was unsalvageable. Prisma is from a company so I did not consider it. I found MikroORM and got very interested with.

Relations can be resolved directly from an object (ie. user.org.load()) reducing the dependencies for a service (ie. just need an OrgService, not UserService). Making mutations is a matter of simply changing a property. Normally, updates are flushed manually using em.flush(), but I have a hook to do it at the end of every requests.

Its request storage means that a lot of queries get deduplicated, which happens a lot on fat codebases:

    // in FooWarehouseProcessorExcelExportManager
    // performs a SELECT
    const org = await user.org.load()

    // logs 'ACME'
    console.log(org.displayName)
    org.displayName = 'ACME Corp Inc.'

    // later in BarStorageMiddlewareS3UploadSession
    // no SELECT! fetched from the request cache
    const org = await user.org.load()

    // logs 'ACME Corp Inc.'
    console.log(org.displayName)

    // at the end of the request, in PostgreSQL
    begin
    # other mutations
    update org where id = 'blah' set displayName = 'ACME Corp Inc.'
    commit
Finally, the maintainer is very responsive and generally great to interact with. It's probably the library that improved my work the most for the past two years.
mhio
Thanks for the info. I've been working my way through the ORM's and had just attempted MikroORM on a project but struggled with the documentation for initial setup so ended up with Prisma. (Which was ridiculously easy to get setup with introspection but had a lot of "wat" moments around extended postgres features.) I'll put MikroORM back in the pool though.
msadowski
I’m very much robotics oriented but I currently support two people on GitHub:

- Davide Faconti (https://github.com/facontidavide) for his work on BehaviorTrees that are game changing for some projects and for his plotting library that saved me hours of time debugging robotics systems

- Atsushi Sakai (https://github.com/AtsushiSakai) for his collection PythonRobotics with neat visualizations of some of the concepts

ris
https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/ ~40 projects taking donations there

You can also browse the list of participating organizations for last google summer of code for FOSS foundations etc. geared up to manage donations.

Edit: not going to plug any specific ones, but this will get you a candidate list. I would personally start by looking at underlying software that has helped you most in earning your living.

mhitza
You can donate to NLNet[1], which itself is an organization that funds FOSS development. Or you can just look at the software/dependencies you already use an donate to those developers ;)

[1] https://nlnet.nl/

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runjake
Perhaps it's controversial, but OpenBSD, because so much of what they do ends up in a bunch of different software, either directly or inspirationally.

https://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

mekster
Why controversial? Genuinely they deserve more donations just for OpenSSH alone.
Sirened
OpenBSD is somewhat controversial in that a variety of its security claims don't make sense or work out in practice. As a whole, however, they do meaningful work so it's still worth donating.
mekster
What do you exactly mean by "its security claims don't make sense or work out in practice"?
beachhead
hey, you finish that blog bypassing those mitigations yet?
fizwidget
OrganicMaps is worth supporting IMHO: https://organicmaps.app/donate/

It’s a FOSS maps app for iOS/Android that uses OpenStreetMaps data. Offline support & minimal battery usage make it ideal for walks/hikes/travelling.

solarkraft
Organic Maps is great. It's close to a drop in replacement for Google Maps on Android.
Ao7bei3s
It's the best we have and has made so much headway, but it's got so many little usability issues, big and little missing features and insufficient data in OSM (location reviews/pictures, often even opening times, highway lane indicators, traffic jam avoidance, car parking location save feature, stop signs, speed limits...) and little annoyances that even as an Open street map contributor I stick to GoogleMaps for anything other than hiking.

It's rendering style is sooooo nice though, I really wish Osmand could render in the same style.

I do think it is a great project to support, where donations can have an outsized impact. Organic maps is our best shot yet at having OSM get wide use for general navigation. I just worry that it's ideological stance (e.g. no data collection ever) means it will never be able to support some things (e.g. traffic aware time estimates and routing, accident and speed trap warnings or sharing own live location with friends) that people just expect.

solarkraft
Agreed about the UX quirks. They're fairly small though and could probably be easily fixed.

I think data collection should be an option.

mixmastamyk
Gimp has not been well supported considering it's near central position in the ecosystem. (Haters—not interested in entitled comments, thanks.)
tredre3
No entitlement from my part but GIMP has been sitting on a LOT of money for a lot of years[1]. They do nothing with donations because they don't have the legal structure in place (their explanation).

What they really need is a new leader. That's the only thing that would really help the project at this point.

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/GIMP/comments/qowcy7/1300000_in_bit...

mixmastamyk
Looks like some folks donated bitcoin, which has been incredibly volatile the past few years and currently on a significant downswing. I'd recommend a more practical donation that could more easily be distributed.
internetter
I think KDE is absolutely worth donating to. Sure they make a bit more than some other projects, but no where close to gnome, and not nearly enough for the good they've done to the world. They are finishing a year end fundraiser [0].

[0] https://kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2022/

bfrog
Gnome, nixos, helix editor, rust embedded graphics
bb88
Instead of donating to random projects, donate to the projects that directly helped you along your journey.

GNU, Perl, Linux, etc.

solarkraft
microG (https://microg.org/) is a very cool, important and (it seems like) under-appreciated component of a usable Google-free Android system. They take donations via Liberapay: https://en.liberapay.com/microG/

The whole ecosystem related to this topic deserves support IMO, especially ironing out all the kinks for daily use, starting with the installation (have you seen LineageOS's download page?!).

EteSync enables end to end encrypted cloud storage for calendar and contacts: https://www.etesync.com/

Havoc
LetsEncrypt

Not strictly speaking foss but adjacent and nonprofit

speedgoose
Is it worth giving them a little as an individual when they have funding from many large companies?
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t312227
i'm a fan of donating to more "fundamental" or "essential" projects like

crypto

* openssl

* openssh => the openBSD project (!)

* gnupg

linux

* debian

* gentoo

maybe even

* arch, alpine, ...

others

* mozilla (!) - you remember: currently the only (FOSS) alternative to webkit/chrome, which start to dominate the ecosystem which is really bad!!

* ...

etc.

fredski42
I would opt for the serval project [1]. Having a mobile based mesh network facility that is not controlled by corporations and/or governments is of paramount importance imho.

[1] https://servalproject.org/

tholdem
I would participate in the Proton Charity Fundraiser. You can buy tickets which would allow you to win Proton lifetime account and at the same time, you would support really cool FOSS projects, such as: GrapheneOS, Qubes OS, Tor Project.

Proton is fine, but their Charity Fundraiser is awesome: https://proton.me/blog/2022-lifetime-account-charity-fundrai...