Today Is My 30th Birthday
And I have a small request
If you’re not already familiar, every year on my birthday I make the same birthday wish: help out an Open Source project with their funding. It doesn’t have to be elementary or even anything in the elementary ecosystem! But your help (even if it’s just $1) can make a huge difference to improving the quality and quantity of Open Source software.
I want to challenge you today to make a difference in developers’ lives. If you have a favorite app or you’ve used an Open Source library in your app or you run an Open Source operating system, you can make a difference!
Obviously out of self interest, I would love it if you’d support elementary. We’re a tiny operation with just 3 full-time employees working for far below market rate. Even without payroll it costs us money to run the servers that host the OS download, AppCenter, and Weblate for localization. It’s also very expensive for us to travel to events like GUADEC that are essential for collaborating in the global community and pushing for new major features across Open Source desktops.
At the moment we have just 309 patrons on Patreon. I’d love to see that number tick up a bit today. Or check out some of the other ways to Get Involved with funding.
If you’re an elementary OS user and you’ve elected to delay payment on an app from AppCenter, make today the day you pay for it! I’m sure that app is worth at least $1.
Another great way to support a wide range of Open Source projects and desktops is by becoming a Friend of GNOME. Many of the libraries and services relied upon by apps you use every day are maintained by members of the GNOME community.
Otherwise if you don’t use elementary OS or any GNOME using OS or any Gtk+ based apps, take the time to find out how the things you do use raise funds and help them out today. Buy that thing. Make that donation. Support that crowdfunding campaign. Be a part of something bigger!
Shameless self plug! If you’re feeling extra generous and you want to support me specifically, I’m on Patreon as well and I have PayPal. Cheers!
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