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If you had $5,000 to donate to your favourite open-source projects, which one would they be?
(discuss.tchncs.de)
For me, I would definitely put the money into the open medical science stuff going on, like projects that are working towards open source insulin production and pumps and stuff. A close relative is diabetic (T1), and the things he buys just to stay alive are not cheap, and I would want that to change. The work those people are doing is extremely important, since insulin production is currently a very complex process and it takes significant time. Large Pharma companies have labs dedicated to doing it and they've streamlined the more traditional ways of doing it, which, due to the complexity, those methods have a very high (financial) barrier to entry, which keeps other, more generic labs from producing the substance needed for diabetics to live.
I'm talking about liquid insulin.
The FOSS push on this is focused on making a simpler method of production, and delivery of the insulin, giving third party and generic drug manufacturers an alternative to the high-cost of setting up a manufacturing line for insulin, and hopefully driving costs down.
They're also working on delivery systems, aka insulin pumps, that are FOSS. The problem there will be regulatory approval; the medical community is fairly strict when it comes to this stuff.... In any case, as nice as many things mentioned here are, I always feel that those guys always need help.