Donation Central

Submitted by rdjere on Mon, 11/28/2011 - 12:18

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Welcome! Donation Central is an initiative that I created to provide centralized links to the donation pages of great Free Software projects. The projects are neatly categorized to make them easier to peruse. Information about making a donation to support Donation Central is at the end of the page. NOTE: My recommendation is that you go through the ENTIRE list, and pick one or more projects that you can afford to send a donation to.

Please contact us to add a Free Software project to this list. To get added, the project MUST have an ACTIVE development community. I will vet each project before adding it to the list. Please use the contact us form to inform me of any inactive projects on this list, or any inaccurate listings. Thank you!

Art

  • Open Game Art is a great service that hosts a media repository to hold artwork. The intent is for the artwork to be taken freely and used in Free Software game projects. What a wonderful idea!! As my skills with the GIMP get better an better, I may even donate artwork to this project in the future. Here's an idea, why doesn't someone make a repository where we can post raw GIMP source files in GIMP's native xcf format? Then others could take the files and edit them, improve them, etc. Anyway, Open Game Art is a great site providing a wonderful service to the Free Software community. They accept Bitcoin, Flattr, and Paypal donations on their homepage.

Audio Software

  • Audacity is a free software/open source sound recorder and sound editor. It is licensed under version 2 of GNU's GPL. Audacity is my favorite sound editor: I use it to record and edit my GNU/Linux oggcast. It is extremely powerful, and very easy to use.
    Audacity accepts Paypal donations here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/community/donate#donate
  • CDex proudly advertises that it is licensed under version 3 of GNU's GPL. I like that! CDex is an open source digital audio CD extractor. It can rip CD audio to a variety of formats: Ogg Vorbis, mp3, wav, FLAC, and more. All source code is available on the CDex website, and there are compiled binaries for Windows on the website as well. You can contribute to CDex here: http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/?q=donate
  • Mplayer is one of my favorite audio players on my GNU/Linux systems. MPlayer is available for the 4 major operating systems: Linux, Apple's OSX, Windows, and the Unices/BSDs. MPlayer is licensed under GNU's GPL, and you can contribute to the project here: http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/design7/donations.html
  • fre:ac stands for "free audio converter". fre:ac is a descendant of BonkEnc. It can be used to extract audio from compact disks, and convert the audio to other formats. You can download the source code from the fre:ac website, which also has compiled binaries for Linux, Mac, Windows, and several of the BSD OSs. You can show the project some love here: http://www.freac.org/index.php/en/donate-to-bonkenc-othermenu-34

Calendars

  • Sunbird is a free software/open source calendar application. It is cross-platform, having builds for GNU/Linux, Mac, and Windows. It is triple licensed under the MPL, GPL, and LGPL. You can donate to this wonderful project in many different ways here: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/donate.html

C++ IDEs

  • Code::Blocks is a free software/open source C++ Integrated Development Environment. It is both extremely powerful and very flexible: it runs on GNU/Linux, Windows, and MacOS. Code::Blocks is licensed under version 3 of GNU's GPL.
    Code::Blocks accepts Paypal donations here: http://www.codeblocks.org/donations
  • CodeLite is an open-source, cross platform IDE for the C/C++ programming languages. It has Linux, Windows, and MacOS versions. It is distributed under the terms of the GPLv2 license. CodeLite accepts Paypal donations by clicking on the button at the bottom right of their homepage.
  • Dev-C++ is a powerful free software IDE for Windows written in Delphi. I have used it, and it is wonderful for writing and compiling C++ code (it uses the MinGW port of GCC for actual compilation). You can donate to Dev-C++ using the PayPal button on the right hand side of the homepage.
  • Eclipse is a free software/open source Integrated Development Environment that can be used to compile C++ or Java code. Eclipse runs on GNU/Linux, Windows, Solaris, and MacOS. Eclipse is licensed under the Eclipse Public License.
    Eclipse accepts donations here: http://www.eclipse.org/donate/

Content Management Systems

  • Drupal is an open source content management system that powers millions of websites worldwide, including Djere.com and WhiteHouse.gov. Drupal was created by Dries Buytaert back in 2001, and is licensed under version 3 of GNU's GPL. It is my favorite CMS! You can donate to this wonderful project here: https://association.drupal.org/donate
  • Joomla! is another very popular free software content management system. I have used Joomla! in the past, and it is top notch. Joomla is a fork of the Mambo CMS that was created in 2005. It is licensed under GNU's GPL. You can donate to their project here:
    http://opensourcematters.org/support-joomla.html
  • WordPress WordPress is probably the world's most popular CMS for bloggers. It power millions of blogs and websites. WordPress is licensed under GNU's GPL version 2 or later. You can donate money to the WordPress project here: http://wordpressfoundation.org/donate/
  • XOOPS is a powerful content management system written in PHP that connects to a MySQL database. XOOPS was created in 2001, and is very popular for creating personal, corporate, and community websites. It is licensed under GNU's GPL. You can donate to XOOPS here: http://xoops.org/modules/xdonations/

Databases

  • Firebird is free as in beer! Firebird is a free software relational database that has been in development since 1981. It is licensed under the IDPL, a copyleft license similar to the GPL. I have to be honest: I had not heard of Firebird until doing my research today, but I'm glad that I found them. You can donate to the Firebird Project here: http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/start/#consider-your-contribution
  • MariaDB is a free software database server that is a drop-in replacement for MySQL. Unlike MySQL, MariaDB does not have corporate backing: it is a community-based project. As such, most of the people that develop MariaDB are volunteers. These courageous and selfless individuals spend their limited time and resources to create a great piece of software that everyone can benefit from. If you like what the MariaDB project is doing, you can donate to it here: http://kb.askmonty.org/en/donations
  • PostgreSQL is a popular open source database server. It has been in development for a very long time, and is known for its stability and reliability. PostgreSQL has a very large and active development community, made up mostly of volunteers. You can show your support for PostgreSQL here: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate/

Desktop Environments

  • GNOME. See the GNOME Foundation in the "Foundations" section below.
  • KDE's Plasma desktop is very popular on many GNU/Linux distributions. KDE is built using the Qt framework, and it has environments and Free Software for GNU/Linux, Solaris, MacOS, FreeBSD, and Windows. KDE has been around since 1996, and it continues to grow and expand. You can donate to the KDE Project here: http://jointhegame.kde.org/

Foundations

  • The Apache Foundation supports an incredibly wide range of free software projects. These projects include OpenOffice.org and the Apache Web Server. This venerable organization was founded in 1999, and it continues to do fantastic work.You can donate to the Apache Foundation here: http://apache.org/foundation/contributing.html
  • The Documentation Foundation maintains and promotes the popular LibreOffice office suite. The Document Foundation accepts donations here: http://www.documentfoundation.org/contribution/
  • The Free Software Foundation advocates for and promotes the use of free software. The GNU arm of the FSF creates and maintains great free software packages.
    The Free Software Foundation accepts various forms of donations here: https://my.fsf.org/donate/
  • The GNOME Foundation is responsible for my favorite desktop environment: GNOME. I currently run Gnome 3 on all of my Fedora computer systems, and I absolutely love it! GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it is Free Software. I strongly encourage you to donate to GNOME here: http://www-old.gnome.org/friends/
    The Free Software Foundation accepts various forms of donations here: https://my.fsf.org/donate/
  • Jasig is a consortium that sponsors open source software projects used in higher education environments. Jasig is not-for-profit, and it has taken on a very noble cause. They survive on donations from those who appreciate what they are doing. As a student myself, I strongly support this kind of initiative. Jasig was founded in late 1999. I am in the process of writing the Wikipedia article for Jasig now, so I will update with more information soon. You can donate to Jasig here: http://www.jasig.org/jasig/contribute/donations
  • The Linux Foundation is the non-profit organization that fully supports the Linux operating system. It was founded in 2000 to foster the growth and prosperity of Linux and the open source software movement. Both corporate and individual members help the Linux Foundation to achieve its goal of spreading Linux everywhere. The Linux Foundation pays Linux inventor Linux Torvalds' salary so that he can focus on maintaining the high quality of the Linux kernel. You can support the incredible work of the Linux Foundation here: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/participate/linux-donate
  • The Mozilla Foundation is a global non-profit organization that supports making the Internet open and accessible to everyone. They created and maintain the fantastic Firefox web browser, and other Internet-related free software.
    The Mozilla Foundation accepts various forms of donations here: https://donate.mozilla.org/page/contribute/openwebfund
  • The Open Source Initiative is a non-profit corporation that supports free software and open source licensed software. They also support open standards, and they resist the unethical practices of locking customers in using proprietary software. You can support their great work here: http://www.opensource.org/donate
  • Yorba is a wonderful non-profit organization that is dedicated to promoting and creating free software. Yorba is based in San Francisco, and it was founded in January 2009.There offices are in San Francisco's Mission District. You can donate to Yorba here: http://yorba.org/donate/

GNU/Linux Distributions

  • Debian is one of the oldest GNU/Linux distributions. It was created by Ian Murdock back in 1993. Over the course of the next several years, Debian grew to become one of the most stable distros, and it has a very loyal following. Debian created a non-profit organization called Software in the Public Interest (SPI) to handle donations. The websites are here: http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/ and here: http://www.debian.org/donations
  • Dragora is a completely Free Software GNU/Linux distribution that is endorsed by the Free Software Foundation. It was created by Matias A. Fonzo in 2007. Dragora's name comes from the Mandragora plant. You can donate to this excellent GNU/Linux distro here: http://www.dragora.org/donations.html
  • Dynebolic is another GNU/Linux distribution that is endorsed by the Free Software Foundation. Dynebolic has no proprietary bits at all, and its main strength is its audio and video editing performance. Dynebolic accepts donations via Pledgie here: http://pledgie.com/campaigns/13590
  • Fedora is my favorite GNU/Linux distribution. The Fedora Project was started in 2003 by Red Hat. Fedora is a community-based GNU/Linux distro that feeds directly into Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The Fedora community does not actively solicit financial donations, they prefer help in the form assisting project activities. You can find ways to contribute here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Contribute
  • Gentoo is a popular GNU/Linux distribution that was created by Daniel Robbins in 2002. Gentoo is known for its great performance due to the fact that it usually compiles programs so that they are tuned specifically for the hardware that they are running on. You can donate to Gentoo by clicking on the "donate" button in the upper right hand corner of this page: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/sponsors.xml
  • Linux Mint is one of the world's most popular GNU/Linux distributions. Mint was created in 2006 as a derivative of Ubuntu. Since then, it has grown immensely in popularity, and has helped to bring GNU/Linux to the masses. Linux Mint accepts donations here: http://www.linuxmint.com/donors.php
  • Liquid Lemur is a GNU/Linux distro based on Arch Linux. It used to be based on Debian. Liquid Lemur aims to build a base system upon which a user can add more desired software packages easily. Lemur has one of the most attractive desktops that I have ever seen. The distro has a 5-man core development team made up of Ed Snyder, Mario Steele, Brian Tomlinson, Tyler Melton, and Chad Fluegge. You can donate to the project by clicking on the homepage's "DONATE" button.

GNU/Linux Oggcasts/Podcasts

  • LibreCAST is a GNU/Linux Oggcast hosted by GNU/Linux expert and C++ programmer Rex Djere.
    The LibreCAST accepts Paypal donations at this address: donate AT djere.com.
    The LibreCAST accepts Bitcoin donations at this address: 1FAoDBQRmz5gpf8rHXAK8VPY66qzKnT3iK
  • The Linux Link Tech Show is one of the best and longest running of the GNU/Linux oggcasts. They have had virtually every major player in the free software community on their show. I listen religiously. I had a hard time finding their donation page, but I tracked it down. You can donate using the Paypal button near the bottom of the page here: http://tllts.org/get_the_shirt.php
  • Linux Outlaws is my absolute favorite GNU/Linux Oggcast. They are funny, informative, and extremely entertaining. You WILL like their show. The show is hosted by Fabian Scherschel and Dan Lynch. You can donate to the oggcast via Flattr here: http://flattr.com/profile/fabsh

GUI Libraries

IDEs For Programming Languages other than C++

Knowledge/Learning

  • Moodle is a completely free course management system licensed under GNU's GPL. Many schools are switching to this free alternative to Blackboard. Not only is it free, but all of Moodle's source code is available if you want to make changes or enhancements to it. My college actually uses Moodle, and I find it to be just as good as Blackboard. You can contribute to the Moodle project here: http://moodle.org/donations/
  • Wikipedia is THE entity that I donate to religiously EVERY year. They are one of the world's most powerful forces against selfishness and greed. To me, Wikipedia has one of the most noble goals: make all of the world's information available to everyone. They refuse advertising because they don't want a greedy entity to co-opt the information for financial gain. I can't state strongly enough how much I admire what they do! Wikipedia accepts donations in many forms. If you are a U.S. federal government employee, you can donate to Wikipedia via the Combined Federal Campaign. Their CFC code is 61478. You can learn about all of the ways to donate here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/WaysToGive/en

Organizers

  • Chandler is a desktop notebook organizer that you can use to organize, backup, and share your thoughts with the world. It has compiled binaries for Windows. You can support this noble project by making a donation to their parent organization, the Open Source Applications Foundation: http://www.osafoundation.org/donations.html

Project Management Software

  • GanttProject is a Java-based free software project management system. I've used several of these types of project management suites, since many of them come with GNU/Linux distros. GanttProject is one of the best out there. GanttProject is licensed under GNU's GPL, and there are versions for GNU/Linux, Mac, and Windows.
    This is a great project, and they really could use your support. You will see a big yellow "DONATE" button at the bottom right of the homepage.

Software Telephones

  • Ekiga is a free software/open source voice and video conferencing software package for Gnome and Windows. It is licensed under GNU's GPL.
    Ekiga accepts Paypal donations here at the bottom right of the page: http://ekiga.org/

Source Code Repositories

  • Source Forge is one of the oldest and most respected source code repositories on the Internet. They freely host a ton of open source/free software projects. In doing so, they provide a commendable service to the free software community. They do have a donation page here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/

Text Editors

  • Aquamacs is a text editor based on Emacs. The catch is that Aquamacs is designed to work with Macs, specifically Macs running OSX. If you own a Mac, and you want a free software/open source text editor, Aquamacs is a great choice. Aquamacs was created by David Reitter using Emacs as its basis. Mr. Reitter continues to develop the software. You can show your support for his work here: http://aquamacs.org/donations.shtml
  • Notepad++ is the only text editor that I use on my Windows system. It is far superior to Notepad or Wordpad. It features syntax highlighting for a variety of programming languages, including C++. Along with Gedit for GNU/Linux systems, Notepad++ is one of the best text editors that I have ever used. It is licensed under version 3 of GNU's GPL.
    Notepad++ accepts Paypal donations here: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/donate.html

Video Software

  • K3b is a cd and dvd creator made especially for GNU/Linux. I read a great story about K3b: a gentleman bought his grandson a laptop, and they installed GNU/Linux. The grandson used K3b extensively. The grandad found out that K3b was made by volunteers (college students). He wanted to donate the project but did not know how. This story made me realize more why a web page like Donation Central is necessary. The donation methods of some projects are easy to find, while others are much harder. K3b now has a very easy to find donation page here: http://k3b.plainblack.com/donations
  • VideoLAN (VLC) Media Player is my favorite video/audio player. It can handle any file format that you can throw at it. I use it on my GNU/Linux and Windows machines: it is my primary player. It is an incredibly well developed and designed piece of Free Software. You can show you support for VLC by clicking on the Paypal links at the top of the homepage. You can find all of the ways to contribute here: http://www.videolan.org/contribute.html

Word Processors

  • Abiword is a free word processor similar to Microsoft® Word. It is GNU Free Software. Abiword is available for GNU/Linux, Mac, and Windows. Abiword has been around since 1998, and it is included in the repositories of every major GNU/Linux distribution. The project does not seem to actively solicit financial donations, but I was able to find a page where they describe other ways in which you can contribute: http://www.abisource.com/contribute/
  • LibreOffice Writer is part of a larger free software office suite known as LibreOffice. I absolutely love LibreOffice! It is my primary office suite on my GNU/Linux machines, and on my Windows machine. LibreOffice is a community-based fork of OpenOffice.org. You can support this project by making a donation to the Document Foundation here: http://www.documentfoundation.org/contribution/
  • LyX is a TeX/LaTeX based document processor licensed under GNU's GPL. It runs on GNU/Linux, Mac, and Windows. The developers generously donate their time and money to produce a consistently great product. You can contribute to LyX here: http://www.lyx.org/Donate

Worship

  • OpenLP is worship presentation program that can be used to display song lyrics, religious texts, and other pertinent information during religious services. It is OpenLP is licensed under GNU's GPL. I could not find a donation page for this wonderful project, but the development team's page is here: http://openlp.org/en/team
  • OpenSong is a Free Software application that allows you to create computer projections with lyrics and chords, and to present information at religious services. You can donate to the project by clicking on the PayPal donate button in the upper left-hand corner of the home page.

You can help to support this page:

  • Paypal donations: donate AT djere.com
  • Bitcoin donations: 1FAoDBQRmz5gpf8rHXAK8VPY66qzKnT3iK
    More coming soon!