About me: My name is Solène Rapenne, pronouns she/her. I like learning and sharing knowledge. Hobbies: '(BSD OpenBSD Qubes OS Lisp cmdline gaming security QubesOS internet-stuff). I love percent and lambda characters. Qubes OS core team member, former OpenBSD developer solene@. No AI is involved in this blog.

Contact me: solene at dataswamp dot org or @solene@bsd.network (mastodon).

I'm a freelance OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux and Qubes OS consultant, this includes DevOps, DevSecOps, technical writing or documentation work. If you enjoy this blog, you can sponsor my open source work financially so I can write this blog and contribute to Free Software as my daily job.

Launching on Patreon

Written by Solène, on 13 March 2023.
Tags: #blog #life #patreon

Comments on Fediverse/Mastodon

1. Introduction §

Let me share some breaking news, if you enjoy this blog and my open source work, now you can sponsor me through the service Patreon.

Patreon page to sponsor me

Why would you do that in the first place? Well, this would allow me to take time off my job, and spend it either writing on the blog, or by contributing to open source projects, mainly OpenBSD or a bit of nixpkgs.

I've been publishing on the blog for almost 7 years now, for the most recent years, I've been writing a lot here, and I still enjoy doing so! However, I have a less free time now, and I'd prefer to continue writing here instead of working at my job full time. I've been ocasionaly receiving donation for my blog work, but one-shot gifts (I appreciate! :-) ) won't help me much against regular monthly incomes that I can expect, and help me to organize myself with my job.

2. What's the benefit for Patrons? §

I chose Patreon because the platform is reliable and offers managing some extras for the people patronizing me.

Let be clear about the advantages:

  • you will ocasionaly be offered to choose the topic for the blog post I'm writing. I often can't decide what to write about when I look at my pipe of ideas.
  • you will have access to the new blog posts a few days in advance.
  • you give me incentive to write better content in order to make you happy of your expenses.

3. What won't change §

This may sound scary to some I suppose, so let's answer some questions in advance:

  • the blog will stay free for everyone.
  • the blog will stay JS-free, and no design change are to be expected.
  • the blog won't include ads, sponsored ads or any "influencer" style things.
  • publishing on alternate protocols gopher and gemini will continue
  • content will be distributed under a CC-BY-4.0 licence (free to use/reuse).

4. Just a note §

It's hard for me to frame exactly what I'll be working on. I include the OpenBSD webzine as an extension of the blog, and sometimes ports work too because I'm writing about a program, I go down the rabbit-hole of updating it, and then there is a whole story to tell.

To conclude, let me thank you if you plan to support me financially, every bit will help, even small sponsors. I'm really motivated by this, I want to promote community driven open source projects such as OpenBSD, but I also want to cover a topic that matters a lot to me which is old hardware reuse. I highlighted this with the old computer challenge, but this is also the core of all my self-hosting articles and what drives me when using computers.

5. Asked Questions §

I'll collect here asked questions (not yet frequently asked though), and my answers:

  • Do you accept crypto currency? The answer is no.