alt Hacker NewsThe tip jar is fine, the problem is that most corporations have no process to drop anything in the tip jar without purchase orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.
The same process is why open source is such a hit among the developers that actually accomplish real work in such corporations.
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If all they need is an invoice and some papers, then it seems like a business-opportunity? Offer the service to manage their donations to OSS-projects, maybe offer some additional software for managing which OSS they are using and how much those need in donations. Seems like something the FSS should offer.
It would be great if all open source required payment of at least 1 dollarcent for enterprises, to make sure the purchase accounting layers are working in case anyone wants to send more money.
For 1 cent, we can still call it "free" even as in beer, the amount is small enough for that to be fair.
This is why I'm so glad when I find an open source project that has a book or similar that I can buy - I can expense a 50/500 book easily, getting a $5 expense for software approved is a PITA.