affero.com news: LinuxQuestions Press Release

Media Contact for Affero:
Henri Poole
Affero, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
415-810-6804
poole at affero.com

Media Contact for LinuxQuestions:
Jeremy Garcia
LinuxQuestions
jeremy at linuxquestions.org

LINUXQUESTIONS.ORG INTEGRATES AFFERO'S PLATFORM FOR PATRONAGE

San Francisco, CA, USA Friday, August 16, 2002 - Affero announced today availability of their service with LinuxQuestions, a premier online support forum for GNU/Linux users. Affero enables the users of the service to build reputations as "Patrons", enabling the non-experts to develop positive reputations in this community of highly technical experts. Experts on LinuxQuestions build reputations and can choose which projects will receive funding on behalf of financially recognized answers on these free forums.

Jeremy Garcia, founder of LinuxQuestions says "LinuxQuestions.org was started to help people who were unfamiliar with GNU/Linux. We feel that we have become a great resource, but the site would not be possible without the many other great projects out there. Affero gives us a chance to not only help support the site, but to give back to the projects that deserve and need help.". Henri Poole of Affero states "LinuxQuestions has built a powerful community of individuals who care deeply about helping others without any expectation of financial returns. With our collaboration, these communities now have a way for their newbie users to be appreciated as valuable assets to the community. Instead of being expected to give technical advice to reciprocate, they can now easily provide much needed funding to the causes that the community supports."

LinuxQuestions introduced the Affero service to their community in Mid-July by asking users to vote on which projects or foundations were most popular among their users. LinuxQuestions.org, Free Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, KDE, and GNOME Foundation were all chosen to receive gifts on behalf of their users.

Bradley Kuhn from the Free Software Foundation says "grassroots fundraising in recognition of valuable support, bug fixes and other contributions should be another important staple to the long-term viability of the free software movement and Affero is a platform that can help facilitate it".

Individuals can sign up to Affero's service and specify which projects should receive donations on behalf of their efforts. Affero provides individual URL's for each member which can be added to their signatures which are attached to each email message sent by the member. For individuals who post heavily on various mailing lists, this provides a quick and easy way for others to thank them for their help. Information on Affero's service can be found at http://www.affero.com .

About Affero:
Affero is working to bring a culture of Patronage to the Internet. The services empower recognition and financial reward for valuable contributions to virtual discussions. Affero hosts personal web pages for Volunteers, whether they are community hosts or individual participants that describe why they care about certain issues, which causes or organizations they feel need support, and a secured payment mechanism to facilitate impulse gifts from Patrons who the Volunteer may have helped in time of need. All Affero members build community reputations through various interactions. Over time, these reputations will help facilitate a more effective dialogue for members in new and existing communities. Affero, Inc., founded in 2001, endorses the development and use of Free Software and their web site can be found at http://www.affero.com . They are headquartered in San Francisco, CA, USA.

About LinuxQuestions:
LinuxQuestions.org was founded in mid-2000 to help members with tough GNU/Linux questions and to give something back to a great community. Two years, fifteen thousand members and over one hundred and twenty thousand posts later we have grown to become one of the premier Linux forums on the web. We pride ourself in being both Newbie friendly and Expert friendly at the same time. LinuxQuestions.org also offers the full man pages online, a GNU/Linux glossary, front page news and will be adding tutorials/how-to's and a Hardware Compatibility list in the near future. The LinuxQuestions website can be found at http://www.linuxquestions.org .

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