This isn't the first year that DuckDuckGo has donated to free and open source projects – they've done this for the last few years – but it does represent the largest contribution to date. The 2015 contribution of $125k is over three times larger than the 2014 donation total of $40k, which suggests, rather strongly, that the company is continuing to experience solid growth.

I have two reasons for bringing this whole thing up.

The first is to simply give the team over at DuckDuckGo a big, virtual high-five. Seeing a for-profit company give so generously to worthy, freedom-loving projects gives my faith in humanity a little boost. That's not to say that other companies don't contribute to (and donate to) open source projects, but $125k, for a small company with roughly 20 employees, is a pretty sizable chunk of change.

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