We missed April’s target, so May is having to do extra duty. It’s time to come to bat in our 2026 Independence Fundraiser.
Right now we’re $1,354 away from meeting our fundraising goal for May, which might seem odd considering that normally we only need to raise $1,000 each month in our FOSS Force 2026 Independence Drive to pay our writers. Sadly, it’s because we missed meeting April’s goal by $384, which we’ve had to add to the $1,000 we would already need for May.
You might be wondering how that can be, considering that we ended the first full week in April having crossed the halfway point for the month way ahead of schedule.
Like the kid who sits in the back of the class, I’ll raise my hand and take the blame. When April 7 rolled around and we were already over halfway to the finish line, I figured that meant I could lighten up on the time I was spending writing these weekly chats to pay attention to reporting (and editing) the open source news, which is what FOSS Force is all about.
While that decision did result in more complete coverage — which is always a chief consideration for me and the others involved with this site — it also evidently cost us in the fundraising department. In the past, whenever I’ve made one of these appeals you’ve responded generously. My mistake, I guess, was in figuring that my little chats had nothing to do with it and that you would have responded anyway, without my prompt.
Silly me. I should’ve known. From here on out I’ll be sure to sit down with you, at least once a week, and remind everybody that we need to raise some money and why we need to raise it. Again, it’s to pay our writers. When we miss our fundraising goals like we did in April, that means I have to dip into my meager retirement savings, which are only going to be enough to carry me for three or four more years, no matter how frugal I am. Less when I have to use them to pay writers.
The money you contribute helps us pay our writers. It helps us continue to serve the open source community by keeping people like you informed. In the last week alone we have told you about Warp finally going open source, after years of promising to do so; about the shuttering of Ask.com, the company that gave the early internet Ask Jeeves; about the exploit known as Copy Fail and why you should patch against it; about Otto Kekäläinen’s ‘Mentoring Mondays’ program for training Debian devs; about Ubuntu’s plans to add AI running on Snaps; and about two of the original Kubernetes developers working together again at a startup focused on securing AI.
All that, along with Larry Cafiero’s distro reviews and Jack Wallen’s app reviews.
Let’s get back on track with this fundraiser. There’s no amount too small. If all you can afford is five dollars, that will be a big help and we will appreciate it. If you can afford more, that will help, and we will appreciate that too. Also, if you can, when you’re making your donation, choose the ‘monthly’ option. That saves you the trouble of having to go through the donation process again, and helps us plan better.
Please donate now.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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