OSNews

Yes, you will get 3 jelly beans a day. NO MORE!

I doubt it. The osnews staff has repeatedly made clear (with a certain amount of hostility I might add) that:

1.) They don't want to pay people for contributions. Apparently the editors aren't even being paid.
2.) They don't want to release any financial information.

Personally, I find it somewhat astounding that a for profit company is soliciting donations at all. If osnews was an NPO, I'd have no problem with it, but they aren't. Where's the money going? Would I be spending time writing articles to fund someone's big screen tv? (my guess is that I wouldn't, but without any financial information how can I be sure?)

If your cynicism is that deeply embedded, then don't. Don't comment on this article, don't even use the site. If anything you've already proven that you wouldn't make a good editor with an attitude like that.

There are plenty of others who don't see this as a matter of money, and see it as an opportunity for greater things like furthering their skills and bringing joy to readers who are genuinely interested in the art of computing.

Editors? What editors? I've given up asking Eugenia to get somebody to proofread her English.

As for a for profit company taking donations - who cares? The only difference if they were a NPO would be that you could get a tax deduction for your donation - meh.

If you like what they are doing and want to support it - donate. If not, don't. There is nothing magical about a non-profit that makes it any more financially responsible or accountable.

This is an area of debate amongst freelance writers -- should people do unpaid work?

I see both sides of the argument. People working for free decreases the demand for paid work. I have no doubt that some publishers would start paying for work or pay more than they already do if the pool of unpaid workers were smaller. This is particularly true in the music press, for example.

On the other hand, most professions have a concept of internship. I had seven articles published on OS News before I started going after paid writing work. I was happy to do the work and I feel that I benefited from it. Getting my work in front of an audience and receiving feedback for it was a valuable part of the learning experience.

Apart from anything else, you need a portfolio of published work to make reference to in order to go after other work.

As long as you are getting something out of it -- such as building your profile as a writer, or developing your skill set -- unpaid work has its place, in my opinion. Naturally, the people who get to read your stuff are getting something out of the situation too.

As with most things, I think that a good balance needs to be found.