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