SpamBayes donations

SpamBayes is free software. There is absolutely no obligation to pay any money to use or redistribute the software. However, the developers of the software consider the Python Software Foundation (PSF) a charity worthy of your support. A donation to the PSF would not only demonstrate your appreciation of this tool, but also help to advance the development of other Python-based open source tools in the future.

About the PSF

The PSF is a non-profit organization devoted to advancing the Python programming language. The PSF is a public charity under US tax law, and all donations made by US residents are tax deductible (see the PSF donations page for details).

For more information on the PSF, please see the PSF web site.

Why donate to the PSF?

SpamBayes is written in the Python programming language. The developers of SpamBayes believe that if it were not for Python, SpamBayes would simply not exist - the productivity gains and ease of use made it possible for a bunch of hackers to experiment freely and somehow end up with this very nice tool.

In addition, the developers are all strong advocates of Open Source Software. It gives us powerful, free tools we can use to develop software, but more importantly, the tools come with the ultimate technical reference - the source code. Therefore, we are able to fully understand and sometimes even fix the tools we rely on.

Yeah yeah, but why donate to the PSF?

Many different people have donated their time to this project, which makes it unreasonable for any individual to collect money. As the PSF is a registered non-profit and devoted to promoting Open Source Software, it seems the logical choice.

What will the PSF do with my money? Will it be spent on SpamBayes?

Your SpamBayes donation goes into the general PSF fund; it is not earmarked specifically for the SpamBayes project. In the future, the PSF may make additional funds available for SpamBayes, for some other worthy Open Source project, or for some other purpose within its charter.

Open Source has a great history of producing fine code, but less so when it comes to performing the kinds of research required for these kinds of projects (research on statistical algorithms is time-consuming and tedious, and there's no a priori guarantee of success). One thing the PSF hopes to do in coming years is fund the core research needed to springboard these kinds of projects.

You may like to read the PSF Mission Statement for more details.

OK, OK, where do I pay?

Please make sure you have read this document, so you know exactly why you are giving money ('cos the software is so cool) and to whom (the PSF).

To donate now using PayPal, simply click here