Packt Publishing Donates Over $100,000 to Open Source Projects

Posted by shriharshb on Mar 20, 2008 6:19 AM EDT
Packt Publishing; By Shriharsha Bhat
Mail this story
Print this story

Birmingham, UK, March 17 – Packt Publishing today announced that its donations to Open Source projects surpassed the $100,000 mark. Following its first donation to the phpMyAdmin project in April 2004, the company has gone on to provide sustained support for over thirty different open source projects.

Packt has introduced initiatives such as the Open Source Project Royalty Scheme and Open Source CMS Award to provide sustained donations to projects over the last four years. The Open Source Project Royalty Scheme allows projects to benefit from the publication of a book, as they are allocated a percentage of every copy sold. “This is something that we offer to every open source project that we publish on” said Damian Carvill, Packt’s marketing manager. “Packt is proud to have reached this significant milestone and remains committed to keeping donations at the heart of its long-term publishing strategy.”

The Open Source CMS Award is entering its third year and as its name suggests, is designed to support, recognize, and reward pen Source Content Management Systems. The winner of 2007’s Overall Award was Drupal, a project which also benefits from Packt’s Open Source Project Royalty Scheme. "The Drupal project and its community have grown sharply over the last couple of years. The support that Packt has shown, through its book royalties and awards, has contributed to that success and helped the project handle its growth” explains Dries Buytaert, Drupal’s founder. “The Drupal Association uses the money that Packt donates on a number of things including, server infrastructure and the organization of events."

Open source software is freely available and free from restrictions. Open Source projects survive largely on financial donations and support to cover the essentials that keep them running. Therefore, regular donations are vital for their ongoing development and relevancy. “The support that Packt has provided to the jQuery project has been immensely valuable” said John Resig, founder of jQuery the hugely popular Open Source JavaScript library. “jQuery survives off the charity of its users and having these contributions has helped us to continue operations and expand into new projects like: developing new components, plugins, and general accessibility enhancements.”

For more information on Packt Publishing and its donations to Open Source, please visit www.PacktPub.com

Contacts

Packt Publishing

Damian Carvill +44 121 683 1170 contact@packtpub.com

About Packt Publishing

Packt, pronounced Packed, published its first book in April 2004 and subsequently continued to specialize in publishing focused books on specific technologies and solutions. Packt’s books and publications share the experiences of fellow IT professionals in adapting and customizing today's systems, applications, and frameworks.

Its solutions-based books give you the knowledge and power to customize the software and technologies you're using to get the job done. Packt is a modern and unique publishing company with a focus on producing cutting-edge books for communities of developers, administrators, and newbies alike.

For further information on Packt Publishing, please visit www.PacktPub.com.

Full Story

  Nav
» Read more about: Story Type: Announcements; Groups: Community, GNU, Linux

« Return to the newswire homepage

This topic does not have any threads posted yet!

You cannot post until you login.