Re: Considering Making A Financial Contribution to GNU Hurd

[Marc Dunivan]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 00:15 Blair Vidakovich <vidak@riseup.net> wrote:

Hey all,

I have been meditating on the state of free software over the last week
in some intense and productive discussions with my Unix Users Group here
in Perth. I was dismayed to find out that the top three GNU/Linux
distributions were Ubuntu, Fedora, and Mint, this morning. I thought at
least Debian was in the running.

I have also been dismayed to watch the general decline of the fortunes
of 'free software' in favour of 'open source' software over the last two
or so years. The firings at Mozilla, the sale of GitHub, the purchase
and then eventual termination of CentOS...

I have been avoiding the worst of the Linux world by adopting the Guix
System, and have really enjoyed using the EXWM window manager.

I know that the Guix Project is semi-serious about porting itself to the
Hurd kernel, and I really want to see interoperability between these
systems.

I have been donating money to various different free software projects
over the last few weeks, like putting a bounty on implementing OMEMO
encryption for XMPP in EMACS, and contributing to the patreon of Mezzano
OS, a LISP operating system project.

I want to donate AUD$4000 to the GNU Hurd project now as well. This is
the rest of my superannuation I have had compassionately released, due
to my unemployed status during Covid-19.

I have managed to sit on most the money I had released, and I realised;
I do not need it.

I want to ask:

- how could a financial contribution to GNU Hurd help right now?

- what could some money be targeted towards, when spent?

- what is most desirable to achieve straightaway?

- what are a list of the priorities for the project right now?

I was thinking I could do some popularisation of the project--I could
fund some advertisements, or some hardware for people?

Let me know what you think.

Vidak

(email) vidak@riseup.net
(blog) https://bootlicker.party
(gemini) gemini://tanelorn.city/~vidak
(fediverse) https://awkward.company/vidak

How about contributing to an account where the "GNU Hurd Project" could pull funds in the future for needed miscellaneous expenses to promote more GNU Hurd interest?  

Not to pay developers time/code, or for infrastructure, but to promote--evangelize--computer scientists/programmers/developers/technical-writers to study and understand the GNU Hurd code and how to build the OS...to get interested in the project.  Simple low cost things like "lunch and learns" with lunch paid for, or printing flyers for GNU Hurd talks to encourage people to learn the code, or GNU Hurd hack events...etc. 

What is interesting about GNU Hurd?  Why should people take the time to learn the code and how it works?  What skills studying GNU Hurd will develop?  How is GNU Hurd relevant now?  How will it be relevant in the future?  What are the benefits of a Free Software micro-kernel operating system on current and future hardware--not just PC's?

P.S.  If there was a USA 501(c)(3) organization to promote GNU Hurd, I could donate $2000.