14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical has outlined a plan that should give everyone a clear image of what happens with the money donated through the website.
Maybe some of you will remember that Canonical has introduced a form in Ubuntu.com that pops up right before the actual download webpage.
This annoyed a lot of people at that time, but others were glad to donate money to a company that provides an amazing operating system for free.
Canonical said that the money would be used to fund the development of the desktop operating system, but there wasn't any transparent system put in place to see what is actually happening with all that “dough.”
Lucky for us, Community Manager Jono Bacon has stepped in and explain that a fair and transparent plan will be put in place, for how the money raised from the community, upstreams, and flavors will be used for the development of Ubuntu.
Here is a short description of “the plan”:
• The donations are broken into six-month cycles; • There are three pools of donations, and those are Community, Upstreams, and Flavors. The funding for each slider will be reserved for that part of the community; • Any Ubuntu Member is welcome to apply for funding for projects that will benefit Ubuntu and/or our family of Ubuntu flavors; • Anyone who wishes to request funding will fill in a form that captures the application and details of the request.; • The Community Team will coordinate and review these requests. After that they will either approve or reject the request, based on discussions with the governance boards and the user who made the request. • At the end of the six-month funding cycle a full report will be published providing (a) a summary of the available budget (b) a list of items where money was spent with the dollar amounts, and (c) any remaining budget that will be carried over to the following funding cycle.
If you are interested to know more about this plan, you should check out the official announcement.