FOSS Projects Worth Donating To?

OrganicMaps is worth supporting IMHO: https://organicmaps.app/donate/

It’s a FOSS maps app for iOS/Android that uses OpenStreetMaps data. Offline support & minimal battery usage make it ideal for walks/hikes/travelling.

I’m very much robotics oriented but I currently support two people on GitHub:

- Davide Faconti (https://github.com/facontidavide) for his work on BehaviorTrees that are game changing for some projects and for his plotting library that saved me hours of time debugging robotics systems

- Atsushi Sakai (https://github.com/AtsushiSakai) for his collection PythonRobotics with neat visualizations of some of the concepts

I think KDE is absolutely worth donating to. Sure they make a bit more than some other projects, but no where close to gnome, and not nearly enough for the good they've done to the world. They are finishing a year end fundraiser [0].

[0] https://kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2022/

I support those, and I believe they deserve more:

- SerenityOS [0], they do get some donations, but nothing close to the Linux Foundation, Wikipedia, or Mozilla.

- MikroORM [1] if you'd like to support an ORM for TypeScript in the backend, again some donations, but nothing close to SerenityOS!

[0]: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity

[1]: https://github.com/mikro-orm/mikro-orm

You can donate to NLNet[1], which itself is an organization that funds FOSS development. Or you can just look at the software/dependencies you already use an donate to those developers ;)

[1] https://nlnet.nl/

Perhaps it's controversial, but OpenBSD, because so much of what they do ends up in a bunch of different software, either directly or inspirationally.

https://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

Look at software you use and identify underlying libraries.

SVGO https://github.com/svg/svgo is used by many graphics software but hasn't seen donations commensurate with usage https://opencollective.com/svgo

Instead of donating to random projects, donate to the projects that directly helped you along your journey.

GNU, Perl, Linux, etc.

I don’t know how much they get but it’s peanuts. React os. https://reactos.org/donate/

GrapheneOS

https://grapheneos.org/

DavX5! https://www.davx5.com/ - this plus nextcloud will fully replace sync on android

AntennaePod https://antennapod.org/ great podcast app.

Fdroid, k9mail, c:geo... I can go on and on.

I would opt for the serval project [1]. Having a mobile based mesh network facility that is not controlled by corporations and/or governments is of paramount importance imho.

[1] https://servalproject.org/

microG (https://microg.org/) is a very cool, important and (it seems like) under-appreciated component of a usable Google-free Android system. They take donations via Liberapay: https://en.liberapay.com/microG/

The whole ecosystem related to this topic deserves support IMO, especially ironing out all the kinks for daily use, starting with the installation (have you seen LineageOS's download page?!).

EteSync enables end to end encrypted cloud storage for calendar and contacts: https://www.etesync.com/

Ampache has been around for over 15 years but they are always improving. When it first started at a college I donated beer but they also accept money. [1] I think they would prefer contributions in the form of software development. [2]

Ampache is A web based audio/video streaming application and file manager. Allowing you to access your music & videos from anywhere, using almost any internet enabled device.

[1] - https://ampache.org/donate.html

[2] - https://github.com/ampache/ampache

I would participate in the Proton Charity Fundraiser. You can buy tickets which would allow you to win Proton lifetime account and at the same time, you would support really cool FOSS projects, such as: GrapheneOS, Qubes OS, Tor Project.

Proton is fine, but their Charity Fundraiser is awesome: https://proton.me/blog/2022-lifetime-account-charity-fundrai...

i'm a fan of donating to more "fundamental" or "essential" projects like

crypto

* openssl

* openssh => the openBSD project (!)

* gnupg

linux

* debian

* gentoo

maybe even

* arch, alpine, ...

others

* mozilla (!) - you remember: currently the only (FOSS) alternative to webkit/chrome, which start to dominate the ecosystem which is really bad!!

* ...

etc.

Gimp has not been well supported considering it's near central position in the ecosystem. (Haters—not interested in entitled comments, thanks.)

https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/ ~40 projects taking donations there

You can also browse the list of participating organizations for last google summer of code for FOSS foundations etc. geared up to manage donations.

Edit: not going to plug any specific ones, but this will get you a candidate list. I would personally start by looking at underlying software that has helped you most in earning your living.

Gnome, nixos, helix editor, rust embedded graphics

Falkon Web Browser https://www.falkon.org

FreeBSD, https://freebsdfoundation.org/donate/

OpenBSD, https://www.openbsd.org/donations.html

LetsEncrypt

Not strictly speaking foss but adjacent and nonprofit