The Story Behind the Ask...

I figure some of you have stumbled onto our fundraiser and don’t know anything about FOSS Force and what we’re about. Others are here because you’ve seen one of the updates we publish on our site, or because you’ve seen one of our fundraising appeals on social sites – meaning you already know what we’re about.

No matter which group you’re in, we welcome you.

At FOSS Force, we practice journalism and our beat is free and open source software, or FOSS. Since 2010, we have offered our insider’s take on what’s happening in the FOSS world. We cover all aspects of FOSS, including Linux, open source software projects, enterprise use of FOSS, open source institutions… The list goes on and on.

If you’re not familiar with our site, I invite you to take a look. I’m sure that even if you’re not involved in the FOSS world, you’ll see we take our work seriously. It’s also important work, because whether you know it or not, if you use any computing device – from a phone on up – FOSS is a part of your daily life.

About a year ago, we made the decision to do away with Google ads – along with any other form of advertising that uses tracking cookies that follow you around on the internet. We were motivated not only by our concern about the privacy of the people who visit our site, but because in order to make Google ads pay, we had to load the site down with so many ads that reading our site became something of a chore.

Since then we’ve been supporting the site with affiliate ads from carefully selected sponsors, in which we get paid when someone clicks on an ad and makes a purchase. Many sites maximize their affiliate ad income by incorporating their affiliate advertisers’ products into their editorial content. In other words, they write articles pushing their affiliate advertisers’ products.

As a news site, in this age of fake news and sponsored content, we feel we can’t do that. We have a background in the print newspaper business, and we strive to create a firewall between advertising and editorial. We will never run articles like product comparisons that are meant to sell products and earn commissions. On FOSS Force, our content is honest, and our ads are easily recognized as such.

Right now, we need help paying our writers, so here we are with our FOSS Force 2026 Independence Fund. What we’re trying to do is raise $12,000 in 12 months to cover what we pay our writers while we develop other ways of monetizing our site. That’s at least $1,000 we need to raise each and every month. Because of that, we have a mini goal each month that we track on our site in a push for that $1,000.

Whether you’re a regular reader of our site or you just want to support honest and well-reported journalism, we would appreciate your help. Give what you can afford; no donation is too small. And if you can afford it, make your donation monthly, so we’re not starting each month from scratch.