In my travels recently, I happened across a rather thought provoking proposal from Martin Owens, an active contributor to the Ubuntu project. He suggested that people would be more likely to contribute financially to open source projects if contributions felt less like charity and more like investments.
It's an interesting idea. It's not that donations don't support good, important, necessary work, or that charities aren't worthy causes -- nor is it implied that open source software projects, especially those driven entirely by uncompensated volunteers, aren't worth supporting financially. However, donating to a local animal shelter, food bank, or awareness campaign feels very different than donating to an open source software project. There are a few reasons why this is so, and they support Owens' idea that perhaps the donation language should be replaced with more appropriate terminology.
