Sorry. My charitable donations will be going to the needy.

If Perl, which I adore, is good enough to sustain its place in the it world on the strength of its merits, I fail to see why it should rely upon charity for its continued existance?

I would willingly pay a small amount for my copies of perl. I am sure that this would be true for most individual users and no problem at all for the big corporates.

Why is it that we think nothing of paying for everything else we use and consume, and paying over and over to listen to the music produced by bands (a tape, a CD and every radio play), but want our software to be free?

Are the talents of programmers and less skilled or valuable than a musician, song writer or singer?

Sorry. My charitable donations will be going to the needy.

So do mine. Some of them, to be sure, in the form of direct financial support of charitable organizations. But others in the form in the direct support of Perl.

How does the latter benefit the needy?

• Because it maintains and improves the Donated (a.k.a. Free) Software upon which many charitable organizations -- who can't afford to buy commercial software licences -- now rely. Especially in the developing world.
• Because it makes available low-cost alternatives for even those charitable organizations who can afford to buy commercial software licences. Thereby freeing more of their resources for the actual work they do, rather than for infrastructure.
• Because it helps make possible the work of medical, biological, and bioinformatics researchers, of engineers, of scientists, all those whose efforts to improve our understanding of the world ultimately improve conditions for all people (and especially the vast "needy" majority).
• Because Donated Software is widely used by the (typically underfunded) social services branches of governments, and by national judicial systems, without which many of the world's needy would have access to neither social nor legal justice.
• Because Donated Software has the capacity to enfranchise and empower those who would otherwise be excluded from the present Information Age by their economic, social, or political circumstances.
• Because far too many of my own friends in this community are now "needy", having become victims of the current IT downturn. Their future employment prospects depend (in part) on their Perl skills, which are only of value so long as Perl continues to thrive.

Donating to The Perl Foundation is a way of helping all those things to keep happening.

Sure, there are many other worthy causes that merit our generosity as well, but please don't denigrate the value of The Perl Foundation just because its very real and wide-reaching contributions to the good of humanity aren't as immediately obvious -- or as emotionally resonant -- as those of World Vision or Médecins Sans Frontières.

Perl doesn't need donations of cash for its continues existence--it never has, and likely never will. (It has, however, relied on charity for its development, and very existence. That is, after all, what the time and effort donated by Larry and the community is)

The point of the donations to the Perl Foundation is to aggregate cash from individuals and companies to fund something that, individually, they wouldn't otherwise be able to fund. $20 from one person won't go very far, but $20 from 100 or 1000 people will go rather further. Lots of people have some spare funds, but not the time or talent, to donate to perl's development, and there's nothing wrong with them doing so. If you're going to argue that people should give their cash to charity, you should also argue that they should give hte spare time they work on perl to organizations like Habitat for Humanity, too. Time and effort is as valuable as money in many cases, after all, and what's good for the goose...

Yes, last year's grants were large, and there was some dissatisfaction in the community over them. (Though the question does ask itself "If you didn't like the destination for the money, why did you donate? And if you didn't donate, why are you complaining about what other people chose to do?")

If you don't want to do something like this, you don't ahve to. And if you have some reservations about the management of the funds, the destination for the grant, or the operation of the foundation, you're well within your rights to raise those questions with the people who can actually answer them, and not donate if you don't like the answers. If you donated, you're definitely due answers to questions like that about what's already been done, or being done.

Slagging on what's been done when you weren't involved, or on others because they choose to be, isn't cool, though.

I would willingly pay a small amount for my copies of perl.

So why don't you?

Oh, I see, you're only willing to pay if you are forced to pay. Not exactly 'willingly' now is it?

Update:

Why is it that we think nothing of paying for everything else we use and consume ... but want our software to be free?

This is a very good question. I have two related answers:

1. Software is ahead of its time. Other industries are just beginning to follow the lead, slowly adopting similar approaches. Projects such as Creative Commons are being launched to encourage less restrictive licensing terms.
2. Open licensing results in better software. If the software is free more people will use it and improve it (see Necessary Preconditions though). It's very hard to compete with this development model. This results in open software eventually replacing proprietary software in areas where there is the enough interest. So an expectation that a programming language would be free seems fairly reasonable (although it's important not to take it for granted) whereas the same person wouldn't necessarily expect a highly specialized piece of software to be free.

These are oversimplified answers at best. See The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Open Sources and related works for longer (slightly indirect) answers to the question.

I quote garym's Barnraising your IT article at Advogato:

There's a point which a lot of us need to take home from this, and one which many of those seeking to "make money from free software" seem to miss: Free software is not about selling a service, it is about a community activity, a shared commons. If some software we are using is broken, or needs work, like any commons, it is our failing, not a failing of the "vendor".

There is no "vendor" in this world, there is only "we".

And further:

Say your community shows up to build you a barn, and you sit on the porch drinking lemonade, criticising their carpentry and pestering them for a completion date, well, just how ludicrous is that scenario? Yet this is exactly what we are doing when we sit back like some ancient king, expecting free software served to us, taking what we you need, giving nothing in return except maybe money ... or "advocacy". Sigh

Even if all we can do is serve them lemonade, or do the little grunt jobs for the apprentices, carry the lumber, hold the chalk-line, mix the paint ... at least we're helping ease the load.

So, if you don't want to donate money, that's ok, but what have you done to contribute to the effort so many others have benefitted you with?

Makeshifts last the longest.

what have you done to contribute to the effort so many others have benefitted you with?

I think this approach will only go so far. Instead focus on how contributing benefits the contributer as well:

• Improving your programming skills.
• Gaining greater understanding of the software.
• Experience to list on your Resume.
• Name recognition.
• The software improves faster and becomes increasingly more usable.
• And many more...

This of course applies mostly to contributing time, not money. Although, in my opinion, time is far more important to open source projects.