What/How/Who is funding PPP optimization efforts?

[tckosvic]

It looks like there are about 10 OS teams and several desktop teams working on software for each OS.  They are, of course, working toward making PPP a functional smart cell phone.  Success will depend upon the magnitude of the effort put in.

Are they volunteers?  I think not. Are they professional programmers?  I think so.

Is Pinephone paying for their time?  Are the OS and Desktop companies paying for their time?

One contributor to this site says "Donate to support your favorite OS team". What are the details of that?

Overall question is how is the PPP optimization effort being funded?

Any insights anyone?     tom kosvic

[bcnaz]

There is no Micro$oft here mailing out million dollar paychecks.

While Purism does have some paid developers and Manjaro appears to have a big budget.

Most of our developers are volunteers, the contributions help them to buy equipment and server space.

I think most of our developers have full time day jobs to put bread on the table.

The only person getting rich in the Linux world that I know of, would probably be Mark Shuttlesworth.

At the minimum these guys deserve our "respect and appreciation" without them, Pine would be just a warehouse full of parts.

[ojimek]

> Are they volunteers?  I think not. Are they professional programmers? I think so.

Why do you think those are exclusive? Professional developers doing volunteer work is actually the most common form of FOSS contribution. And it's not entirely selfless either : it acts as your résumé. I've been a professional developer for 15 years, publishing and contributing to many FOSS projects, and I can tell you one thing : I never got a job application rejected. I never either bothered writing an actual résumé, my github profile and names of previous companies was enough. And this is without having done any major or highly visible FOSS project, but just niche libraries and toolings.

There is also the opensource way, where commercial companies fund opensource projects (by giving money or assigning teams to them) either to raise their streetcred among the industry (with the hope of "attracting top talents", as they say) or because it matches some of their goals. A big corp having teams building opensource software is nowadays incredibly common.

Bottom line : FOSS is a big dating system for employers/employees

[vap0rtranz]

There is also the opensource way, where commercial companies fund opensource projects

That's ^ how it usually works. Apache Foundation, Linux Foundation, FSF, etc. raise lots of funding through donations. Donations are often tax write-offs for the donor (but not always).

Don't discount "volunteers". They're usually employed elsewhere to put bread on the table, as @bcnaz said. So they're juggling a job and the project too.

Pine64 brand is trademarked by the Pine Store Limited, so that company is incorporated somewhere if the OP is really curious. My guess is they're a B Corp instead of a LLC (despite the "Limited" company name) because of the hardware sales being profitable while the mission can be deemed as benefiting non-shareholders. (Kickstarter itself is a B Corp, BTW).

So Pine Store Limited might employ a few folks via paychecks from sales of hardware + funds raised via donors ... But I could be wrong.

[tckosvic]

There is no Micro$oft here mailing out million dollar paychecks.

While Purism does have some paid developers  and Manjaro appears to have a big budget.

Most of our developers are volunteers,  the contributions help them to buy equipment and server space.

I think most of our developers have full time day jobs to put bread on the table.

The only person getting rich in the Linux world that I know of,  would probably be Mark Shuttlesworth.

At the minimum these guys deserve our "respect and appreciation"  without them, Pine would be just a warehouse full of parts.

where to make a donation as your logo purports?    tom kosvic

[dukla2000]

...
where to make a donation as your logo purports?    tom kosvic

Originally for the PinePhone we tried to make this consistent in the wiki - see here for the PinePhone.

Times have moved on and many of the developers/projects have their own websites. The following are, as per my signature, projects that I use but are no means an exhaustive or otherwise indicative list!

Arch Linux Arm Mobile has links on right hand side of this page.

Mobian has options to contribute here.

And from Mobian blog page options for cash donations.

Contributions to megi are here.

postmarketOS here.

etc

[tckosvic]

> Are they volunteers?  I think not. Are they professional programmers? I think so.

Why do you think those are exclusive? Professional developers doing volunteer work is actually the most common form of FOSS contribution. And it's not entirely selfless either : it acts as your résumé. I've been a professional developer for 15 years, publishing and contributing to many FOSS projects, and I can tell you one thing : I never got a job application rejected. I never either bothered writing an actual résumé, my github profile and names of previous companies was enough. And this is without having done any major or highly visible FOSS project, but just niche libraries and toolings.

There is also the opensource way, where commercial companies fund opensource projects (by giving money or assigning teams to them) either to raise their streetcred among the industry (with the hope of "attracting top talents", as they say) or because it matches some of their goals. A big corp having teams building opensource software is nowadays incredibly common.

Bottom line : FOSS is a big dating system for employers/employees

thanks for your insights.  I thought the magnitude of the efforts would be too extensive for a professional to be able to take time away from "paid" tasks to do this on a volunteer basis.  I also thought the efforts would be too complex for a volunteer amateur level programmer.

I've been hacking at programming to support my engineering efforts since the 60s.  Never encountered a volunteer situation.
thanks,    tom kosvic

[bcnaz]

One example that is easy to look up, check out Linux Mint, they have a few corps that contribute, but they have thousands
of private followers that contribute, from a few cents to thousands of $$.