Raising funds for developing Varnish

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

Software development may be open, and the result shared with an
Open Source Software licence, but the actual hours of programming
are not gratis.

Just like everybody else, I need money for mortgage, kids and food,
money I make, by doing things with computers, for people who are
willing to pay for that.

One of the things I do for money, is develop Varnish.

>From the very beginning of the project the Norwegian company
Redpill-Linpro, has channeled money from sponsors and customers and
paid for my time.

Redpill-Linpro also offer commercial services based on Varnish,
consultancy, hosting, support and other services.

That way, the companies which have a contract with Redpill-Linpro,
help pay for the future development of Varnish.

For all practical purposes this has worked great until now.

Unfortunately, some obscure tax rules makes it pretty nasty for me
and my accountant: if more than 30% of my work is for the same
customer in a Nordic country, I may be deemed an employee of said
company with possible double taxation, and other unpleasant paper
work as a result.

This effectively puts a cap on the amount of work I can do on
Redpill-Linpro and consequently: on Varnish.

It is my impression, that a fair number of Varnish users are not
likely to need the professional services of Redpill-Linpro, and
thus unlikely to help pay for future Varnish development via that
route.

This is where the "Varnish Moral License" comes into the picture:

The Varnish Moral License, is a voluntary license payment, directly
to the author of Varnish, which helps pay for the development of
Varnish.

Buying a Varnish Moral License is 100% voluntary, if you do not
make money from your website, there is no reason why you should pay
for a license to use Varnish on it.

If however, Varnish helps your website generate a profit, you should
consider getting a Varnish Moral Licence.

In all cases, it is entirely up to you (and your morals) if you
should get a license or not.

That is why I called it a "Moral License".

Please buy one.

More details and FAQ at: http://phk.freebsd.dk/VML/

Poul-Henning Kamp



-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
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Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.