[NYLoCo] Gutsy preview- How to Pay the piper?

[David Quist]

After I made the plunge to a pure Linux box, I decided to make an annual
contribution for the programs I was using.  Most of the projects, Ubuntu
included, made it pretty easy to contribute, and used Paypal to do it.
If you have a Paypal account, you can go to the Ubuntu community
participation page and look for the "donate" item in the menu to the
left of the screen.  If you click that, it'll take you straight to page
where you can donate via paypal.

I understand how not being asked could be perceived as making it "hard"
to contribute, but my sense is that while the community would love it if
more folks contributed, they don't want to be seen as having their hand
out and injecting money into the "mission." I suspect the theory is also
that, so long as you provide a means to contribute, people will figure
out how to do that - ideally after they have had the chance to try the
software and see its value. Obviously there's room for differing
opinions as to the best way to strike that balance, but to my mind
Ubuntu has struck that balance pretty well.