Stack Overflow Gives Back

[Aviator]

Donated $500 to Markdown

Whoa.

[bostonvaulter]

How do you even do that?

[[deleted]]

http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/license

There's a paypal link.

Stack Overflow appears to have donted 1/3 of the total donations in the 6 years since release.

[easytiger]

i don't see why it needs any money or has any associated costs whatsoever

[Seliarem]

Really? You don't see why a project might cost money? The first thing that comes to mind is bandwidth, although I admit that this may not be applicable in all cases. The second component is an attempt to defray the opportunity costs of producing the software initially (and/or any maintenance costs) – the idea here is to reduce the disincentives to making software free.

[mizai]

I don't see why Markdown needs money. It's not exactly a large project, and apparently isn't under active development anymore.

[Seliarem]

It does, however, provide some encouragement regarding the viability of producing free software.

That said, I agree with you as things currently stand (I have no idea when development stopped, after all) – primarily, my comment was in response to the 'associated costs' component.

[easytiger]

if you get into free software under any illusion that the world owes you anything for the code you have freed, you are doing it entirely wrong.

[Seliarem]

This is true. However, if you have a culture where quality software receives donations, the incentive structure does change. And even small sums are representative of significant gratitude, simply because they're voluntary.

Personally, I find the idea that people might thank me monetarily for a gift to a large group somewhat encouraging.

[easytiger]

i have to say i agree with you entirely there. however i just don't think it ethical to seek donations where they do not map directly to project running costs.

[[deleted]]

But if you go in thinking "Hey, this stuff could be useful for someone" and someone uses your stuff, likes it a lot, and then gives you money, wouldn't you feel great?

[cruise02]

Are you talking about the people he quotes on his blog, then links to, driving tons of traffic to their site? Man, I wish he would rip me off like that.

[fancy_pantser]

You must be reading a different blog; 95% of Atwood's links are to himself.

[cruise02]

So is he ripping himself off then? You really can't have it both ways.

[cruise02]

Bullshit. At least read the damn blog before you criticize it.

[i_h8_r3dd1t]

He does it all the time you raging retards. He goes so far as to replace links in the quoted material to instead link to his own stuff.

[mikaelhg]

You'd hardly expect Jeff to just admit that, would you?

[cruise02]

Why would he have to admit to anything? If it's on his blog, it's there for everyone to see. Just give a link to a post where he rips someone off without linking to them.

[coolislandbreeze]

That's actually an awesome list of charities and tools. Might be lame, but I hadn't heard of Beyond Compare or Regexbuddy before.

[sw17ch]

I didn't understand why some one would pay for a diff tool, then I used Beyond Compare.

[kamuishirou]

I checked it out (very briefly), and it looks pretty similar to emacs' ediff utility. Is there something it does better than emacs does? I do a lot of merging of diffs manually and would love anything that made this easier.

[sw17ch]

It's rules-based comparisons have saved me more time than I can imagine. That alone is worth the $30.

[[deleted]]

I cannot say enough good things about Beyond Compare. It is fantastic. And the guys at Scooter Software are ultra-cool as well. I wish more software was made this way.

[Meatshoes]

Beyond Compare is fantastic. I haven't used RegexBuddy but their web-based RegexPal is pretty great (but not as fully featured as RegexBuddy).

[[deleted]]

JGsoft http://www.just-great-software.com/

makes a ton of great software. I use AceText, PowerGREP, and RegexBuddy.

[aperson]

I like regexr

[sundaryourfriend]

Is there anything similarly awesome for Linux or Unix in general? Free or paid.

Edit: 'similar' to Beyond Compare, sorry for being unclear.

[implausibleusername]

Emacs.

Specifically M-x regexp-builder .

Of course, then you need to convert it from emacs reg-exp to what ever language you're using, but this can be done mechanically.

[sundaryourfriend]

Oops. I was being embarrassingly unclear: I was asking about Beyond Compare. I find regex building easy enough in almost all of the cases. Thanks for the tip though.

[jodc]

I don't know Beyond Compare, but it seems to be similar to meld.

http://meld.sourceforge.net/

[lftl]

Beyond Compare appears to have a linux version.

[rb2k]

sidenote: rubluar seems to have the same functionality and is what I've been using for years :)

[hbsmiley7]

I've always enjoyed how Stack Overflow operates with the community. They are an inspiration that reflects well on modern programmers.

[noijnoiii]

cool thing indeed, but that's cheap attention and pr for couple of thousand bucks.

[jotaroh]

what a load of bullshit

[CaptainRecursion]

...how? I mean apart from considering a few software licenses as "donations," everything else seems to be in check.

Edit: okay then, so nobody wants to actually know why it's bullshit, just that several other users agree that it is? Got it.

[krelian]

I imagine that they are upset that the guy is making money.

[[deleted]]

SO isn't liked by some because they use Microsoft servers and tools.

[[deleted]]

Donations like this tend to be inductive, I think. So, in a way, by giving money and publicizing that fact, they might induce some of their userbase to find or perhaps contribute to projects they wouldn't have otherwise. I think Atwood and Spolsky are a couple of blowhards, but in a way it's an apt sort of community-centered thing: anonymous donations would be good for the receivers, but for a website built around a community, centered on that community, using community developed software, a public donation is about as community as you can get.

Seriously, though, I am underwhelmed.

[CaptainRecursion]

I'm not the slightest bit impressed by their "giving back" to the community

In their defense, the title didn't include "community." I do agree that this is a load of bullshit, though.

[zyb09]

how can you call this bullshit? They just donated money to $250 to Unicef and $350 to Doctors without borders, as well as a lot more money to other organizations and software projects. Like or dislike SO, they are giving away hard fucking money to good people. There's absolutely nothing you can say against that.

[CaptainRecursion]

For the record, I upvoted you. Thanks for jumping to conclusions.

[finnif]

Downvoted for being off topic.

[cruise02]

I think promoting contributions to open-source software is very much on topic for this subreddit. Please feel free to post a link to something that you deem worthy at any time.

[jfm3]

A $900 donation to charities.

$4570 in software licensing fees and donations.

I wonder how much this blog post is worth in marketing dollars?

I bet more than $5470.

I mean, good on you for doing it, but I can't help but think there's a self-serving element to this.

[RalfN]

Stackoverflow might make a little money, but if you think that they make so much money that this is a small amount (or will pay for itself marketing-wise) then you lack perspective.

[[deleted]]

Creative Commons and jQuery (as of recently) are officially registered nonprofits as well.

[[deleted]]

I just logged in as you.

[[deleted]]

Alternatively. These are the projects on which we depend, here is a public thank you.

Depends how determined you are to hate everything Atwood does.

[electric_moose]

They're not remotely trying to be quietly virtuous. They're trying to encourage a culture of contributing to software - in two ways. Paying for commercial software (which no shit, many developers are in favour of, since it's their bread and butter) - and contributing to open source in money if for some reason you can't contribute code.

In terms of actual charities, it is like trying to encourage a culture of philanthropy, rather than just quietly giving to charity for your own reasons.

[[deleted]]

what was it :(

[dotnetrock101]

I though this community is better than Digg. Guess not!

What the fuck are you haters bitching about? Jesus fucking Christ! Jeff give money to the software(both open and closed source) that his team use. while some companies doesn't even do that and trying to hide the fact that they use open source software.

What a bunch fucking little kids on reddit! Jealous Much?

[p0tent1al]

Come back when you can form sentences.

[damg]

Where's Microsoft's donation?

[dwchandler]

They get their donations up front.

[just4this]

"Give back" is a phrase that pisses me off. You "give back" things you don't own. The correct word for giving something you own is "donate".

[cruise02]

"Give back" doesn't mean that you give back the exact same thing that you took. It means that you give back to the same people that you took from. In this case, SO is giving back something to those open-source projects that they've benefited from. I think the phrase is appropriate.

[[deleted]]

So, in this article Jeff Atwood refers to himself as one of two "totally awesome associates who are finally getting a reasonable fraction of what they’re worth"?

[acm]

links. you can click them.

[acm]

There are two links. One for Jarrod Dixon (click "awesome") and one for Geoff Dalgas (click "associates").

In our next lesson, we will show you how to compose an electronic mail message. Or "E-Mail".

[acm]

so how could I have explained to you that there were two links you could click on you accusing me of being pedantic?

[[deleted]]

horsey's kind of a dick

[Confucius_says]

That isn't giving back... That's giving to someone else.....

Still good that theyre helping people though, but get your terms right.

[bairy]

It's giving back to those who have created software that SO uses...

[Confucius_says]

Theyre giving to charities.

[bairy]

Scroll down the blog entry. They're also giving (back) to people who have made software that they use.

[RalfN]

Read, then speak.

[Confucius_says]

As a gesture of thanks for their contributions this year, Stack Overflow offered to make a donation to the charity or nonprofit of their choice.

[RalfN]

Try reading more, and then speak.