F-droid is one of those projects that could really do with more recurring donations.
They are extremely unobtrusive about their donations.
One of the devs actually writes on his homepage [1] that he
would like to work more on google free android, but is currently looking for funding.
But apart from that there's just a few buttons on the homepage sidebar.
I recently heard that these folks are running the entire operation mostly on goodwill, so I just took the time to look into it a bit.
They have about $110 of monthy recurring revenue on OpenCollective [2] and about $750 monthly recurring on liberapay [3]. That's not even one minimum wage salary. That's nothing.
They received big donation of 10K they got from Mozillas Opensource Speed dating session at FOSDEM this year [4] which is great. It's not recurring though from what I can see.
BUT: for being the one project that people (me included) point to when the question of a more open mobile platform arises, having the entire infrastructure (build servers, hosting, code, not to mention someone supervising the whole thing) be done by a handful of volunteers on a shoestring budget doesn't seem right.
Edit: I am aware there are many other open mobile projects and I love them to bits, but they are nowhere near as complete an experience as AOSP + f-droid. Personally, I don't really think of android (even without google and with f-droid) as a free platform, and I don't think that will ever change. So by all means, also donate to Mobian, UBports and all the others. :)
[1]: https://bubu1.eu/
[2]: https://opencollective.com/f-droid#section-budget
[3]: https://liberapay.com/F-Droid-Data/donate ( €143.76/week * 52 / 12, converted to USD )
[4]: https://twitter.com/fdroidorg/status/1243499250551410688
I recently heard that these folks are running the entire operation mostly on goodwill, so I just took the time to look into it a bit. They have about $110 of monthy recurring revenue on OpenCollective [2] and about $750 monthly recurring on liberapay [3]. That's not even one minimum wage salary. That's nothing.
They received big donation of 10K they got from Mozillas Opensource Speed dating session at FOSDEM this year [4] which is great. It's not recurring though from what I can see.
BUT: for being the one project that people (me included) point to when the question of a more open mobile platform arises, having the entire infrastructure (build servers, hosting, code, not to mention someone supervising the whole thing) be done by a handful of volunteers on a shoestring budget doesn't seem right.
Edit: I am aware there are many other open mobile projects and I love them to bits, but they are nowhere near as complete an experience as AOSP + f-droid. Personally, I don't really think of android (even without google and with f-droid) as a free platform, and I don't think that will ever change. So by all means, also donate to Mobian, UBports and all the others. :)
[1]: https://bubu1.eu/
[2]: https://opencollective.com/f-droid#section-budget
[3]: https://liberapay.com/F-Droid-Data/donate ( €143.76/week * 52 / 12, converted to USD )
[4]: https://twitter.com/fdroidorg/status/1243499250551410688