I can see it was needed to add something to the part of the discussion, about should? Government support open source for privacy. Plus the utopia thing … such “claims” do only cause controversy. @anon93652015
But now we have the different views on that.
I do not want to see the discussion went in this direction, as it will be impossible to do this in a non-political way.
Second part is adding some interesting things to the initial topic again, so let’s keep on rolling with this.
I think you’ve misinterpreted my mention of governments using taxes to pay for open source apps and services. Or maybe you haven’t?
The idea is that a government would be constantly under the watchful eye of its citizens, never being given an inch. Citizens would participate more in society as they would be more educated about how things work, why we no longer have certain systems, why we went with the one(s) we currently use, etc.
This is based on something @winnyace said, that and some videos, articles, etc. I’ve consumed over the years related to privacy. I don’t believe anyone should trust their government to do what is right. Instead, make them do what is right.
Too many people in society are literal sheep in human form, and I believe that funding, advertisements and education related to open source could help with that. The reason is simple: open source encourages autonomy, the right to privacy, freedom of choice, etc.
PS: As both you and @joekamprad said, everyone’s idea of “utopia” is different.
I agree with this fully.
There are positive examples of the use of open source implementations in the public sector. There are a number of projects in Europe that go in this direction.
But let’s stop the involvement of politics here, that’s banned from the forum.
The topic is about Firefox, mullvad and open source software Not open source in general sop lets keep in this circle of firefox/mozilla alternatives and the issues related to this directly.
some absolutely eloquent, passionate, and personal posts here, most of what I agree with.
my reasons for librewolf and mullvad and even ungoogled are not privacy and security (there is none) but they are the only products committed to slowing down the bleeding.
that’s important to me somehow. If you have a 40lb advertising dossier and I have a 15lb advertising profile/dossier does it really even matter?
to me, yes, would rather be 15 than 45 any day of the week.
also this is two cents. a lot commented on the benevolence or lack of benevolence of certain parties (open source companies, closed source companies, gov, and all in-between). All I am comfortable saying with certainty is I don’t think anything is as it appears; strange times.
An article about the state of open source — in particular its developers.
No matter your opinion on Mozilla Firefox or Mullvad or any other browser, we need to agree on one thing: these guys need to be paid.
"However, when we think of all kinds of organizations collectively, they simply do not contribute back to open-source.
Some companies’ management may not even realize the concept of open-source, and the rest of them could just be ignorant."
There was a post you made about what what you gave, and what is appropriate to give to our open source projects we heavily lean on. you shared yours and your amounts. your conclusion was astounding to me (and I believe you) that they just need a little a month from more people. modest amounts would help was your point.
I took a screenshot of your brilliant post and the .png has been on my desktop ever since as a constant reminder—eating at my conscience every day.
**When I can work out this kind of monthly thing without a bunch third-party buffoons I don’t trust with their tentacles in my bank account, I feel I can contribute more to my foss things I love and use. How do I do that?
Some will take Monero. But it’s very difficult to donate and be anonymous because someone always wants to know where money is moving.
I donate to what I feel is the most important cause on the planet right now - GrapheneOS. We desperately need more security and OS options on phones. Not that Linux isn’t important. . . But there’s money in Linux (at least at the real big guys like RHEL, Ubuntu) I mean just look at the donors to the Linux Foundation (or don’t you’ll be really disappointed that Meta and Microsoft are some of the biggest donors)
Edit: Enjoy top Linux donors!
Well, like the post you referred to said, $1 USD from all the users of many open source apps would be more than most of them are getting now.
Krita was one of the examples I gave: more than 100K users, but only $3K+ USD monthly.
The challenge is to then figure out which open source apps, systems, and services you use regularly, budget for them, and then pay for them.
I know I can spend up to $50 USD monthly, which means I may be able to support 50 projects.
In this case, some projects may be paid each month, every two months, once a year, etc.
The idea is to give about $12 per year to each project you regularly use.
Another thing I said was that I don’t expect anyone to try to pay for everyone else. Don’t strain your pockets. It’s not a one-person job.
Lastly, add in a few projects that fall under a group. Like:
I must be naive or at least uninformed here.
How?
You ever wait for a Government Check?
No, I fortunately haven’t.
I think you are trying to address human complacency and shifting norms. However,
So, rather than implement something good, then get complacent about it after 50 years, we need to make sure that we never get too comfortable.
On that note, it would be better for individuals to be funding these projects with $1 a month, so as to keep them conscious of their decisions. However, it is unlikely because most “individuals” don’t like doing things for themselves.
Furthermore, an educated population that knows about open source and its benefits would want to make things easier on themselves by implementing the funding of these projects nationwide. It would be a convenience — something most humans crave.
PS: I hope this didn’t go into the political aspect too much. 
The problem is that Government would have to be over your shoulder the whole time. They are not just going to write a check to any project that they can’t ultimately control. They would have “Representatives” checking the code to make sure it fits within the guideliness that said funding is allowed to cover.
Not to mention the process that would be in place just to be able to receive such funds. Could possible take years to get the first payment.
People can’t afford groceries right now I know a dollar isn’t much however when you are sitting there trying to determine how to make the food last for a month donating any money is out of the question no matter the cause.
People are more inclined to be Generous with their money when there is a feeling of abundance. Right now here in America no one is feeling abundant and people are scrapping to just make it to the next paycheck.
You know what? I don’t think I’m qualify to talk about this and honestly I got pretty heated up from this. I will leave this thread now.
Quoting this again because it seems it isn’t clear.
A government should be the extension of the will of its people — not an overseer, supervisor, ruler, etc.
Think of it like Arch Linux, in particular, the implementation of sxhkd.
Some months ago I found the very first thread where this package was mentioned on the Arch forums. There was initially an aversion to it because people were wondering why anyone would need it.
Fast-forward to today, pretty much every WM that doesn’t have built-in keyboard shortcut functionality uses this package.
The reason I mention this is to say that a developer (the people) came up with a good idea and submitted it to the governing body (Arch heads), and now it’s serving the will of the people.
Of course, there are some projects that don’t care about the will of its people in open source (Mozilla, Gnome, etc.), but this is what we should aim for. This is where education comes in.
As far as not having money is concerned, this point is a product of forced systemic dependence. But that is political, so I will only mention it and stop there. Think of it like Stockholm Syndrome, but the government is the captor.
I could feel your passion. It’s how I feel when I see a news story showing that things will keep getting worse unless people do something about it, and unless people stop making blanket statements like “privacy doesn’t exist”, “an individual can’t make a difference”, etc.
Systemic Defeatism. 
I just want to point out, this is absolutely how it feels here now between myself and the folks I see regularly around me. Especially here in California. It’s gotten REALLY REALLY bad the last few years. It’s not like it was.
At the end of the day the real issue is Money. Rather an Opensource Project or Proprietary, neither live long without it. The bigger the project the more money needed to fund it. The more money needed the less questions of where it came from.
Remember Google posted on the wall of Headquarters Don’t be Evil. However after they became Wealthy they took it down. Greed Corrupts.
Crowd donations can go a long way, it is what was said before here, it is not about donating millions it is about many donate little.
If a project has 4 developers and is used by 500.000 People if everyone would donate 1$ per month…
These 2 devs could do a lot of good things.
They could have a real income plus a lot of money for costs of the project and more.
They could go to Event fairs to promote the project, doing userbase meetings.
There is no need basically for big companies donating, small project could grow with the users in a healthy way.
I mean, imagine? 500.000 donators with 1$ montly? thats 6 million a year!
Sounds a little like a project like this one.
We have 753 donators, very proud of this already 
