TL;DR / Take my Money

You can now go to the Linux Automation GmbH online shop and buy labgrid and RAUC sponsoring packages. You get nothing tangible in return.

Wait what?

Both RAUC and labgrid are open source software projects started at Pengutronix, that are quite successful in their respective niche. RAUC is a safe and secure over the air updating solution for embedded Linux devices deployed on millions devices around the globe. labgrid is a software framework that enables automated testing of embedded software on the device, by abstracting away finicky hardware details and enabling conflict-free remote access.

Both projects have developed into healthy open source projects with an active community of outside and inside contributors in their more than ten years (in the case of RAUC) / nearly nine years (in the case of labgrid) of existence.

Pengutronix does not sell RAUC or labgrid as products. There is not and will not be any "Plus" or "Enterprise" editions and also no re-licensing rug-pull in the future. They are also not hobby projects being worked on from someones basement in their spare time. RAUC and labgrid are here to stay and will continue being supported by Pengutronix.

We can do this because we have a successful embedded Linux consultancy business ("Hey you! Wanna buy some Kernel patch upstreaming time?"), provide paid training ("Need some labgrid training?"), and have a hardware subsidiary ("Want some USB-SD-Mux with that?"), that we use to pay for maintenance work on RAUC, labgrid and our other open source projects (barebox, PTXDist, genimage, …).

Maintenance Work

Exciting new features in RAUC and labgrid are often the result of a paid consultancy project or outside contributions, so these are mostly accounted for.

But who wants to pay for pull request review? For reading and responding to GitHub issues? Documentation work? Adding small features outside of paid projects? Improving the test coverage? Who would possibly want to pay for that?!

If you though: "Wait? Me of cause!", or rather: "My company would!" then we have great news, because now you can!

There are now bronze (€50), silver (€100), gold (€1,000) and diamond (€25,000) sponsorship packages available for RAUC and labgrid in the Linux Automation GmbH online shop.

Which one should I buy?

It depends on who you are. Maybe this guide will help:

• I want to get feature XY implemented / my pull request reviewed faster.

  This is not what the sponsoring packages are for, please contact our sales team instead. The sponsoring packages are supposed to be "no strings attached".

• I need to donate more for tax reasons.

  We are not a non-profit and the sponsoring packages do not count as donations. This means the sponsoring packages are not the right thing for you. There are however other great open source projects that are non-profits and would gladly take your donations!

• I am an individual and use RAUC / labgrid on Raspberry Pis in my home lab.

  If you really want to you could send us €50, but don't feel obliged to. Feel free to just enjoy the software, spread the word, report bugs and if you like contribute some patches.

  Maybe you even know someone else who you could nudge to make a sponsorship instead.

• We are a small company and use RAUC / labgrid for our products.

  Maybe a few hundred euros if you can spare them?

• We are $HUGE_COMPANY making big bucks and a RAUC fallback has saved us from a million dollar product recall campaign.

  Whatever sounds fair to you *wink* *wink*.

What do I get in return?

The warm and cozy feeling of having contributed to your favorite software projects. You will also be mentioned in the release notes of the next release (if you like to).

And someone at Pengutronix will spend some time working on the respective project, as a result of your sponsoring.

That's it. No guarantees that you will get priority treatment or a nice card or stickers in return. We may end up doing the latter, but if you need the former, then please contact us beforehand.

Why the shop?

Pengutronix operates as a "discuss goals, sign contracts, do work, send invoice" company. Doing anything else, especially on a possibly small scale, often ends up not being worth it due to the accounting overhead.

The Linux Automation GmbH on the other hand is a "sell product in the shop, receive money, send goods" company. Selling the sponsorship packages via them and translating that in the background to something that works for Pengutronix makes the accounting easier for us.

I like $OTHER_PROJECT much better!

Cool! Is it a Pengutronix project? Should we add a sponsorship package for it? Tell us!