Ask HN: Does your company donate to free software it uses?
We don&#x27;t <i>donate</i> to OSS software which we use, because we&#x27;re legally not allowed to.<p>I routinely send key projects, particularly smaller projects, a request to quote me a commercial license of their project, with the explanation that I would accept a quote of $1,000 and that the commercial license can be their existing OSS license plus an invoice.  My books suggest we&#x27;ve spent $3k on this in 2015.  My bookkeeper, accountant, and the IRS&#x2F;NTA are united on this issue: they don&#x27;t care whether a software license is OSS or not.  A $1k invoice is a $1k invoice; as a software company, I have virtually carte blanche to expense any software I think is reasonably required, and I think our OSS is reasonably required.<p>I would do this more often if OSS projects made it easier for me to do so.  Getting me to pay $1,000 for software is easy; committing me to doing lots of admin work over the course of a week is less easy.  Take a look at what e.g. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sidekiq.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sidekiq.org&#x2F;</a> , which is an OSS project with a commercial model, does.  Two clicks gets me to a credit card form.  If I actually used Sidekiq, Mike would have had my credit card on file the day that form went up.