johnny@centos.org wrote:

...

I STILL do not understand why anyone would care what CentOS does with money donated by people who used the product and wanted to donate.

I used to think this way too, until I got burned.

Most people are reasonable and know you are providing an excellent service for free. But there are getting to be more and more of the conspiracy theorists out there who wonder what your real motivation is. It seems these people can't conceive of anyone doing something for nothing. Perhaps nowadays rightfully so after seeing the number of cases of theft and fraud in both high and low profile cases.

In my case I arranged an upgrade of communications equipment and services for a volunteer agency I was a member of. It was a swap deal, where the new equipment would be purchased at wholesale price if the old (and about to be useless) equipment was traded in to the distributor. It wasn't a high value transaction, less than $10,000US, but for years afterward I was accused of making big piles of money on the deal by certain people. I can guarantee you that the only money made by anyone in the deal was the manufacturer and maybe the distributor made some money by selling the old equipment as parts to someone.

Personally I have a problem with agencies that solicit donations, then expend a considerable amount of money on "administrative costs" or other expenses that don't really achieve the organization's primary mission. One well known agency that comes to mind is the Red Cross. Granted, they are a large and complex organization, but there is something just not right about them paying their top executives what is reputed to be hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salary.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that CentOS does this, but it is in the Project's best interests to make public some info, perhaps even some sort of budget so you know what the expected costs are. Maybe even a sort of "wish" list where money can be earmarked for certain objectives; i.e. "if we were able to raise X amount of money to buy Y, we would be able to accomplish Z". Who knows, large donors have been known to either fill in a hole in a fund raiser or make other creative donation programs like a matching program "For every $1 donated we will provide a match of $1". Already the project gets donations of equipment, and if a mechanism was in place to allow documentation of donations, I know many people and companies who would rather give more money to a worthy cause than the government if they can offset the donation in their taxes.

Ideally, this funding management task should be given to a person (or persons) who are not active in the trenches of development, but who is aware of the needs and have the time to manage the funding as a primary task so as not to take away valuable time from the developers. If this task is given to one person, there should be a backup, who can fill in in the event the primary person is unavailable, and to provide a timely checks-and-balances system. I think that there also should be a contingency fund that could be filled to a certain point, then any overflow can be used for additional purchases as needed. General status of the project's finances should be available to donors on the internet, and detailed finances should be available (at minimum) to all the key contributors to the project at any time. I think this would bring MORE money into the project, since donors could see at a glance the overall financial status, and may even lead to more widespread adoption of CentOS if the project is shown to be financially stable.

I'm not sure if this already takes place, but I do feel that the heavy contributors to the project should get certain "perks", like having their internet connectivity paid for by the project or other similar concessions if funding allows. But also the primary needs of the project have to be fulfilled first, like making sure there is adequate equipment available to test and build releases. The perks might be used as a tool to attract other qualified developers, who would have a clear path to achieve and maintain the status of "project slave" or whatever title might be given to someone who has proven they have the necessary knowledge and capabilities.

There will be those who say that anyone who get these "perks" are not "doing it for free". But if the time and knowledge invested to make the project work isn't there there is no project, and the value of the perks is far outweighed by the results of the work. The people who whine about this are the same ones that complain about everything in their lives, but few actually do anything to make their lives better.

With the reach of CentOS, the project should continue to be successful, and grow more so over time. CentOS isn't dead, it's just having growing pains.

Thanks again to everyones who works so hard to make it happen.

-Ben