To everyone here: THANKS for donating to projects and initiatives that you consider precious, and worth donating to.
Most of us live a busy life, and it's usually hard to stop for a moment and think of the many things around us that make living better, even if it's a tiny open source project that solves a little, almost unknown, problem, run by some random guy in Hungary or Minnesota or Sicily.
I'd bet that a fair number of us on HN have some form of disposable assets / money, and that a small donation will not ruin our lives. Some of us might have an even larger capacity to donate. It's nice when we find the time to appreciate something, and decide to support it at least with our money, if not with a bit of our time and effort.
Side note: I am worried about robots, and am actively looking for a project that could make robot OS or components or the AI/brain that drives them, more human and less harmful. If you know anything worth exploring, please share.
For robotics, "make robot OS" the first (most popular) donation target would be Open Robotics [1] that develop Robot operative system ROS/ROS2. De-facto standard at least in academia, some startups (for MVP), and institutes.
If you are more keen about the hardware side (imo this side probably require more funding if you really want to keep Robots OS, software can come later) I like Robot Studios work by Rob Knight [2], it's OS afaik, with projects such as DexHand [3]. Recently someone posted K-scale labs [4] as robot OS, but imo looks more like a well-funded SV startup that will go full OpenAI and close everything off as soon they hit R&D traction. (just my own impression from reading their docs & focus, happy to be proven wrong)
[1] https://www.openrobotics.org/
Fantastic, thanks a lot for your input. Going to dig in the coming days. Really appreciate it.