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.

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