Sunday, December 14, 2014

Supporting Open Source Initiatives

In the last few weeks I noticed a new message pop up in 2 of the services I use most frequently. Mozilla Firefox, the browser and Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. Maybe because its that time of the year which is the time for giving and everyone is expecting you to give.


Here's what the Mozilla Firefox message said:
"Hello there: We know you love Firefox, but did you know a non-profit called Mozilla built Firefox? Thanks to donations, Mozilla does a lot more than build this awesome browser. We teach people to code, fight for online privacy, and protect this amazing thing called the Web for future generations. Just a few times a year Mozilla asks for donations, and tens of thousands of people all over the world give. If they didn't, we couldn't do all this good stuff. If everyone reading this chipped in just a few dollars we could wrap this fundraiser up in under an hour. You can make a donation here. Thank you."



And this was what was on the top of the Wikipedia page"
"Wikipedia is one of the top sites on the web and serves 500 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.

When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission efficiently.

If everyone reading this donated, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.

This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder"


What I found intriguing was that the number of users using bot these amazing products are so many that their fundraising could be done in under an hour, yet doesn't get done for a year.

All of us talk a lot about freedom and choice and how we should be paid for every little thing we do. Its a little sad that most of us don't think twice about buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks, a coffee that gives us a little pleasure for a few minutes. Yet so few of us are willing to reach out into our pockets for a couple of dollars to give to initiatives that we use multiple times a day, day after day, month after month and year after year.


I've practiced what I'm preaching and have done my bit. Will you ?

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