$5000 isn't enough to quit your full-time job, so it's pretty much worthless. There is only so much time in a day, regardless of monetary incentive. The best way to "donate" to an open source project is to hire the developer(s) to work on the project for a certain percentage of their time. (Google does this.)
That said, the money is good for traveling to conferences. I can't believe this .NET guy can't think of a single conference that he wants to attend or speak at. I've already been to 4 this year, and have at least 3 more. Three are international, so the travel costs kind of add up. So that's what I use donations / book revenue / etc. for.
There are a lot of freelancers/one man shows who contribute to open source, so in that case, their time is a bit more liquid and the 5K would be put to good use.
ok also true. I guess ideally people would find a good use for it (in the past the money could have been put to good use on infrastructure etc, but now OSS hosting environments are almost entirely free - as in free beer free).
That said, the money is good for traveling to conferences. I can't believe this .NET guy can't think of a single conference that he wants to attend or speak at. I've already been to 4 this year, and have at least 3 more. Three are international, so the travel costs kind of add up. So that's what I use donations / book revenue / etc. for.