Query results: June, 2007

I am pleased to announce that we are now accepting donations. We have a Paypal account (which is verified) as well as a Moneybookers one (which should be verified in the coming days). We welcome all amounts - any tip is appreciated! The donation page is this way.

The goal is initially to cover our costs, which amount to approximately 45 EUR per month. We have ordered T-shirts, the sales of which should help, starting next month. In order to avoid any misunderstanding regarding our non-profit status and how the money can be used, there’s a new page saying more on GNU/Linux Matters and money.

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This is also an opportunity for a more personal note.
A few months ago, GetGNULinux.org was mostly a pastime. The site featured a “donation” page displaying a very beautiful and moving photograph by Finbarr O’Reilly. Visitors were kindly suggested to make a donation to a non-profit organization that I have always greatly admired: MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders). While the suggestion didn’t have a striking success (I only learned of two such donations in six months) I was very attached to it.

At that time the costs for running GGL were almost negligible; today however our projects require a very large amount of work. It’s a very uneasy thing to decide that suddenly we should be more important than MSF; but if we want to pursue our goal of becoming a reference for Free Software amongst newcomers, we are going to need some sustainability in our costs. Hopefully in the future, commercial operations will provide enough for us to work full-time on the projects.

I certainly can’t pretend to do any better than the great people at MSF; hopefully though we do sufficiently well at defending our cause to receive a few donations too. I for my part shall continue to contribute to their efforts in the (very modest) amounts I can afford, as this GNU/Linux Matters project goes along.

Thank you

Olivier

President, GNU/Linux Matters.

We have just given the GetGNULinux.org site an improved look.

The site now features round corners, a subtle drop-shadow, and resized links to translations on top of each page. We also significantly re-shaped and cleaned-up the homepage.

No content has been removed nor added - we are satisfied with how the site is built. We simply focused on a slightly smarter look, without getting in the way of the visitor.

This was also a good opportunity to solve a few display bugs which appeared in a popular but rather disrespectful browser, a time-consuming but important work. The code was only very slightly burdened (+2kB) and remains valid, lightweight and hopefully accessible. If you come across any bug or oddity in the display of the site, please consider dropping us a note (or commenting here) so we can fix it. We welcome any kind of remark!

This is the last of a long series of improvements to the GetGNULinux.org site. While we continue to develop the site, our focus will now be on funding our non-profit - through partnerships, donations, and T-shirts (which should be in within three weeks).

The page From Windows to Linux on GetGNULinux.org, a simple and honest description of what switching to GNU/Linux feels like, has been re-worked. Improvements include:

• Lighter layout and less text.
• Better accuracy and more honesty (mentioning the problem of WiFi drivers for example)
• Nice pictures, making reading easier on the eye.

The page caught on StumbleUpon which drew a great number of hits.

The next improvement coming up is a discreet improvement on the general appearance of GetGNULinux.org, and a refresh of its homepage.