Your post hit home with me. I am in the same position. I certainly didn't have money in graduate school to buy all the Perl modules I used and I sure needed them. So I want to help out too.

But you are missing my point: And yes, if you want a support contract you will have to pay. If you want programmers, you will have to pay. If you want a security audit, you will have to pay. If you want books, you will have to pay. And pay. And pay.

But neither of these is the issue. What these people want is an email response back regarding some patches that they have worked on to libnet and they are getting no feedback. They are not whining and complaning, they are actually fixing libnet and Graham isn't getting back to them.