The fund is the result of the contribution made by a series of collaborators plus another 3,000 dollars added to the total by the notMac Challenge organizers themselves. The challenge exists as an incentive for developers to dare to create the tools that allow a replacement for the .Mac service that is accessible to the vast majority of users who feel uncomfortable using the Terminal and running Perl scripts.
When the campaign began in December 2006, the organizer stated, “Since Apple started charging for .Mac I have spent around $ 495. That amount seems somewhat high considering that the features that I use the most .Mac could be accessible from my own server. Much of the required code already exists, but requires a high level of technical knowledge to run.
