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 - Next: <a href="GNU-Project.html#GNU-Project" accesskey="n" rel="next">GNU Project</a>, Previous: <a href="User-Experience-Guidelines.html#User-Experience-Guidelines" accesskey="p" rel="prev">User Experience Guidelines</a>, Up: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="u" rel="up">Top</a>   [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Option-Index.html#Option-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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 - <a name="Funding-Free-Software"></a>
 - <h2 class="unnumbered">Funding Free Software</h2>
 - 
 - <p>If you want to have more free software a few years from now, it makes
 - sense for you to help encourage people to contribute funds for its
 - development.  The most effective approach known is to encourage
 - commercial redistributors to donate.
 - </p>
 - <p>Users of free software systems can boost the pace of development by
 - encouraging for-a-fee distributors to donate part of their selling price
 - to free software developers—the Free Software Foundation, and others.
 - </p>
 - <p>The way to convince distributors to do this is to demand it and expect
 - it from them.  So when you compare distributors, judge them partly by
 - how much they give to free software development.  Show distributors
 - they must compete to be the one who gives the most.
 - </p>
 - <p>To make this approach work, you must insist on numbers that you can
 - compare, such as, “We will donate ten dollars to the Frobnitz project
 - for each disk sold.”  Don’t be satisfied with a vague promise, such as
 - “A portion of the profits are donated,” since it doesn’t give a basis
 - for comparison.
 - </p>
 - <p>Even a precise fraction “of the profits from this disk” is not very
 - meaningful, since creative accounting and unrelated business decisions
 - can greatly alter what fraction of the sales price counts as profit.
 - If the price you pay is $50, ten percent of the profit is probably
 - less than a dollar; it might be a few cents, or nothing at all.
 - </p>
 - <p>Some redistributors do development work themselves.  This is useful too;
 - but to keep everyone honest, you need to inquire how much they do, and
 - what kind.  Some kinds of development make much more long-term
 - difference than others.  For example, maintaining a separate version of
 - a program contributes very little; maintaining the standard version of a
 - program for the whole community contributes much.  Easy new ports
 - contribute little, since someone else would surely do them; difficult
 - ports such as adding a new CPU to the GNU Compiler Collection contribute more;
 - major new features or packages contribute the most.
 - </p>
 - <p>By establishing the idea that supporting further development is “the
 - proper thing to do” when distributing free software for a fee, we can
 - assure a steady flow of resources into making more free software.
 - </p>
 - <div class="display">
 - <pre class="display">Copyright © 1994 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 - Verbatim copying and redistribution of this section is permitted
 - without royalty; alteration is not permitted.
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