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Comment by ckuhl | Hacker News Reader

I have heard before (can't remember where) that a lot of companies won't donate to a project, but would gladly pay for "marketing" if the project simply listed companies that donated to them.

I'm not sure if that would be a feasible option, but I can definitely see the difference in value propositions.

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I wonder if this is because the people in companies currently using open source aren't people with control over the purse-strings. They're the people focused on getting a product out the door.

The marketing department on the other hand, expects to have to pay to put the company name on things. So naturally, they'd be happy being listed as a partner, sponsor, patron, etc.

No, more a function of businesses having obligations not to waste their shareholders' money. By definition, donations are optional things. A donation be heavily questioned afterward if it is allowed to go through at all. But buying marketing, or support, is a perfectly sensible thing for a business to do.

So what you're saying is, the people currently using the software don't have control over the purse strings?

No, the point is that for many companies noone, including the people with as much control over the purse strings as they can have, is allowed to simply donate money to something. It's not that you need permission from someone to do it, but that for even the top decisionmakers donations as such are not a legally permissible choice unless you can credibly justify it as not really a voluntary donation but buying something of value to the company e.g. marketing.

Mastodon has a sponsor list on joinmastodon.org that works like this.

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